San Francisco, Feb 2 (IANS): Microsoft has announced that its Office 2019 suite -- to be available in the second half of 2018 -- will only work on Windows 10 operating system.

"Office 2019 will ship in H2 of 2018. Previews of the new apps and servers will start shipping in the second quarter of 2018. Office 2019 apps will be supported on any supported Windows 10 Semi-Annual Channel (SAC) release," the company wrote in a blog post late on Thursday.

"Office 2019 will provide five years of mainstream support and approximately two years of extended support. This is an exception to our 'Fixed Lifecycle Policy' to align with the support period for Office 2016. Extended support will end 10/14/2025," the company added.

However, there was no change announced regarding the support term for existing versions of Office.

This release has no effect on Office for Mac, which is a separate product with a different release schedule.

Last year at Ignite, Microsoft announced Office 2019 -- the next perpetual version of Office that includes apps (including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, and Skype for Business) and servers (including Exchange, SharePoint, and Skype for Business).

The company also announced servicing extensions for Windows 10 and changes to the Office 365 ProPlus system requirements.

The support for Windows 10 (versions 1511, 1607, 1703, and 1709) for enterprise and education customers running certain versions of the operating system was extended for another six months to help them move to the latest supported versions of the operating system.