(Shocker, I know!) The Microsoft docs article about Microsoft 365 services connectivity has two seemingly contradictory statements in the same article.

But it is warning those users that they potentially could experience some issues when connecting to Microsoft 365 back-end services after that date. (Or maybe just an overaggressive attempt to get those who want non-subscription Office to move to the cloud?) Microsoft is not going to block Office 2016 and Office 2019 customers from connecting to Microsoft 365 back-end services after October 2023. The good news for those users is this was a false alarm.

Recently, some of those users - namely those with Office 2016 and Office 2019 - got a bit of a scare, as it seemed Microsoft had decided to cut off their access to Microsoft 365 back-end services in 2023, which is two years before those products officially exit support. Even though Microsoft is all-in on the cloud, it still is continuing to roll out 'perpetual' (non-subscription) versions of Office every few years.

Difference between word 2016 and 2019