Credit: AP Photo/Richard Drew
Windows 10 Mobile is on its way out, and Mobile Office is close behind.
Microsoft is one day shy of completely washing its hands of the Windows 10 Mobile operating system. That’s not a metaphor, by the way; Windows 10 Mobile support is officially ending tomorrow, December 10. Though the mobile OS is on its way to the obsolescence pile, its apps still have a little bit of time left on this Earth (though not much).
Microsoft announced today that ongoing support for the Mobile Office apps for Windows 10 Mobile will be ending on January 12, 2021. This means that even after support for the OS proper ends, there’ll still be bug fixes and whatnot for another year for Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and those other Office apps nobody uses. Once that end date rolls around, though, that’s it; you can still use the apps if you already have them installed, but new devices will not be able to install them, and there will be no further bug fixes or security updates. If you really want to keep using the Mobile Office apps, Microsoft advises you to install them on an iOS or Android device instead of a Windows 10 Mobile one.
“Because of the lack of security updates, we strongly recommend that if you wish to use Office on a phone you transition to the latest Microsoft Office apps on an iOS or Android phone,” explained Bill Doll, Microsoft’s senior product marketing manager for Office apps strategy. This end has been a looming for a few years now. To be entirely candid, I kind of forgot Windows 10 Mobile existed until I heard about this support end. Hopefully, Microsoft can direct its freed resources somewhere more productive.
