Support for Microsoft Office 2007 Ends in 2017

The office 2007 desktop suite and related server products leave the extended support phase of their life cycle in 2017.  Organisations that still have these software products deployed on-premise should migrate to later versions of the products, still within mainstream support or risk encountering incompatibility issues and security risks.

The Office 2007 suite and the 2007 versions of SharePoint, Project and Visio products all leave extended support on 10 October 2017.  Exchange server 2007 reaches the end of its extended support period earlier on 11 April 2017.

Impact on Security and Compatibility

Customers who still have users running Office 2007, or who are running server software that is no longer supported, could find their software unprotected from malware.

Remaining on older software can also block upgrades or cloud migrations elsewhere in the organisation.  For example, Outlook 2007 is not supported with Exchange Server 2016 or the Microsoft-hosted Exchange Online service.  Conversely, Outlook 2016 is not compatible with Exchange Server 2007, and maintaining the older server could block users who have upgraded their desktop software.

Migrate to What?

Customers with Office 2007 or related products installed should ensure that their users have migrated off the product to a newer version of the software before these products exit their extended support periods.

For the desktop suite, Microsoft provides two major options:

• Later Office Standard and Professional Plus versions
• Office 365 ProPlus

For further information contact the SCC Software Team: [email protected]