Microsoft at the IT Pro conference held in Orlando has formally announced the new Office client, Server exchange and Skype for business clients. The company said that it is committed to releasing the new Office client, Server exchange, SharePoint server, and Skype for business in the second half of 2018. But, before the official release, Microsoft said that it will offer preview version of the Office client which will be named as Office 2019 by mid-2018. This preview version will be called as the Perpetual Client Release.
The new Office client will offer a range of new functionalities with the improved inking features like the pressure sensitivity, tilt effects, and ink replay. On the other hand, with new formulas, and charts for data analysis, the Excel tool too gets an overhaul and the PowerPoint gets new zoom and Morph animations among many other new additions. The server-side changes include the better security features, voice support and IT manageability.
The Skype for business will get a new on-premises version in 2018 and will start migrating the Skype for Online business users to Microsoft teams which is a group chat software that debuted earlier. Though the Microsoft Teams isn’t even a year old yet, it is already replacing the Skype for Business.
Microsoft would announce the full feature set of the new office and server client will be revealed closer to the availability.
Sai Krishna contributed to this post