Microsoft: Go old-school to lock down Office from changes

Microsoft has told business that want to lock down Office 2016 so they don't receive a constant churn of changes to purchase old-school perpetual licenses rather than subscribe to Office 365.

Office 2016, released last month for Windows, will use many of the same update and upgrade cadences and rules that Microsoft debuted in Windows 10.

Office 365 -- actually the core of the subscription service composed of the locally-installed applications like Word, Excel and Outlook -- will offer a "Current Branch" and a "Current Branch for Business," just as does Windows 10. Current Branch (CB) for Office will update monthly and potentially include new or improved features, security patches and non-security bug fixes. Meanwhile, Current Branch for Business (CBB) will issue updates every four months, with the same potential content. In the months that Microsoft does not deliver a CBB update, it will issue only security fixes to customers who adopt the branch.

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