
The current Excel 2019 version is already hugely behind Excel 365 with the “killer feature” of dynamic arrays only available to Excel 365 users as no new features will every be added to Excel 2019.

Many commentators are now speculating that Excel 2019 really is the last in the line of perpetual licensed versions. They seem to have also acknowledged that there are some purchasers that still prefer the “buy once use forever” model.
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It is clear that Microsoft have completely embraced the SaaS (software as a service) model where software is rented and not sold. Microsoft kept us guessing right up to the last minute before announcing that there would indeed be another “perpetual licence” version of Office that would be sold alongside Excel 365. Many commentators speculated that there would never be an Excel 2019. Dynamic arrays are fundamentally incompatible with Excel 2019 and will result in modern workbooks (created with Excel 365) not working as expected in legacy versions (in this context Excel 2019 is a legacy version even though you can still purchase it).Įxcel 365 is the latest, greatest and most powerful Excel version you can use and it is available for a very modest monthly subscription. The new dynamic array capability has evolved Excel 365 into a different league to Excel 2019. For example VLOOKUP has been replaced by XLOOKUP (a modern array function that is more versatile, easier to use and more powerful). In Excel 365 a huge number of older Excel functions can now work in an entirely new way and some old favourites have been replaced by modern array-aware functions. The Excel engine had to be re-engineered to recognize the new dynamic array concept. There have been some amazing features added to Excel 365 since 2019 but absolutely nothing compares to the introduction of Dynamic Arrays and Dynamic Array functions in the July 2020 release.

The Smart Method is the only publisher that does this to keep our books up to date. At the time of writing this article (in September 2020) we’d recently published the fourth edition covering the July 2020 semi-annual update. The Smart Method supports the ever-changing nature of Office 365 by publishing a new version of our books every six months to support each new release. This provided a solid and tested “Semi-annual” version in January and July each year.
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Business users could opt in to a six-monthly update channel. Instead of the old 3-year update cycle, 365 is a constantly evolving product with new features arriving as each new version is released.īecause business users don’t want constant change (and need rock-solid reliable releases) Microsoft introduced the concept of “update channels” for Office 365. Excel 365 is planned to have an infinite life.
