When this change takes place owners of Office 2016 licenses will no longer have access to Microsoft cloud based services, including hosted mail (Exchange) and online storage (OneDrive for Business). To give you more time to transition fully to the cloud, we are now modifying that policy and will continue to support Office 2016 connections with the Office 365 services through October 2023.” “In February, we announced that starting October 13, 2020, customers will need Office 365 ProPlus or Office 2019 clients in mainstream support to connect to Office 365 services. In effect, still deviating from the traditional life cycle model but offering users more time to make the transition to their cloud services. In September 2018, Microsoft issued a further announcement, delaying this change by 3 years to 2023.

Microsoft has confirmed that this will be followed by 5 years of extended support until October 2023 however, in Feb 2018 they announced that Office 2016 will no longer be compatible with Office 365 after October 2020. Released in 2015, Office 2016 mainstream support is due to end in October 2020. Their normal support timescale is 5 years mainstream support, followed by 5 years of extended support during which only security related updates are issued.

Recent Microsoft announcements state that they plan to deviate from their traditional life cycle rhythm.

Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7 both reach end of support in January 2020 and there is another looming issue with Office 2016. 2020 looks like being a big year in the ‘end of life’ cycle for Microsoft products.

Microsoft office 2016 3 user