End of an Era: Saying Goodbye to Microsoft Office 2010

As many of you have noticed, we recently removed all Office 2010 related products from our store. I understand this does not come as easy news, but I will do my best to explain.

Giving credit where credit is due

Office 2010 is known to many as the tried-and-true generation of Office products and most of us here at Trusted Tech Team would agree. Incredible new features came along with the release Office 2010, many of which set the groundwork for the Office we know and love today.

Users were provided with a refined UI, given the ability to coauthor, shielded from harmful documents with Protected View, and were introduced to an ahead of its time cloud-based suite known as Office Web Apps. These features, along with countless others omitted for brevity, empowered users to be more productive than ever in a safer and easier environment.

It is no wonder Office 2010 is beloved by so many. Unfortunately, this does not allow it to overcome the classic mantra, “all good things must come to an end.”

Mainstream support for Office 2010 ended in October of 2015 and extended support ends in October of 2020. With this in mind, we have chosen to focus on the Office 365 line of products and prepare for the release of Office 2019 later next year.

Any frustration or disappointment from our customers regarding our decision to no longer sell Office 2010 is not taken lightly. We are truly sorry. We call ourselves the “Trusted Tech Team” because earning and sustaining your trust is at the core of our values. That said, we believe it is also critical to keep moving forward and be welcoming of progress in the rapidly changing realm of technology.

Turn and face the strange

Change has and may always be a daunting task for humans.

I have used every release of Office and have been there during each transition to the newest version. It has not often been easy, but it has always been necessary. Remember being stuck with Clippy back in Office 2003? Sure, things weren’t quite where you were used to them being when you transitioned to Office 2007 or Office 2010 and maybe it needed a few updates before it performed well with your CPU. However, you quickly became familiar with it and even more effective after creating a few documents and using the new features.

How about a contemporary example: perhaps you’re reluctant about “the cloud” and not familiar with how it works, but your company has you use Office 2016 or Office 365. You need to work on a critical document you forgot to email yourself or save to a flash drive, but it’s stuck on your computer at work. Thankfully, you remember you can login to your Office account and access your files from anywhere. By staying up-to-date with Microsoft Office software, you are ensuring you can always work to the best of your ability.

I want this post to serve not only as an homage to Office 2010, but as a reminder that great things can come from change. Some releases of Office have been only slightly different from their predecessors, while others have completely shifted the paradigm of office work. Regardless of where each new version of Office lands on the spectrum, change is inevitable and we have to adapt to these new environments eventually.

We appreciate all of you who have chosen us to be your Microsoft Office supplier, and we will continue to support all prior purchases of Office 2010. Again, it was not an easy decision to pull Office 2010 from our store, but we must keep moving forward. Please continue to join us as we do so.

Thank you,

Nathan Bedoya

Director of Technology