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Starting summer 2020: device based licensing for Office365 ProPlus

The Microsoft cloud services are based on a per user subscription. For businesses, healthcare, governments and educational institutions where multiple people use just one computer, this is an expensive service. Starting in the summer of 2020 (most likely Microsoft Fiscal Year 21, starting July 1st), Microsoft offers the desktop applications under Office 365 ProPlus in a ‘per device’ based subscription. But there are – off courses – some catches.

Read time: 4 minutes

Not for SMBs
The Office 365 ProPlus per device subscription license will only be available through the Enterprise Agreement and Enterprise Agreement Subscription (EA/EAS). Those are licensing contracts for larger organizations, starting from 500 devices and up. For educational institutions the Office 365 ProPlus per device license will only be available through the Enrollment for Education Solutions (EES), again only larger institutions.
With that, Microsoft excludes small and midsized organizations from the per device subscription solution for Office 365 Apps. Also, the per device option is not available for Office 365 Business, the Apps from the cloud solution for businesses with up to 300 subscribers.

Only for desktop
As far as the information shows, the per device licensing option is not available for use with network servers, where the per user subscription is. This means that customers using Remote Desktop Services or Citrix XenApp in combination with Office 365 ProPlus Apps will not profit from the per device licensing option. Microsoft might change this or add additional conditions once the per device subscription option appears in the Product Terms (expected update July 2020).

Current versions
To be able to apply the Office 365 ProPlus per device licensing option customers must use at least the now current versions of Windows 10 and Office 365. To be more specific:

  • Version 1907 or later of Office 365 ProPlus (current version: 1907)
  • Version 1803 or later of Windows 10 (current version: 1903)

Besides, the Windows 10 devices must be Azure Active Directory or Hybrid Azure AD joined. There are specific configurations for using Office 365 ProPlus in a per device subscription assignment. Please see the Microsoft item for detailed information.

Office 365 Suites
The Office Apps for local installation, known as Office 365 ProPlus, are part of various Office 365 and Microsoft 365 suites, like Office 365 E3/E5 and Microsoft 365 E3/E5. There is no mention that those suites will also be available in a per device subscription option so we must assume that the per device option is only available to the specific Office 365 ProPlus subscription.

Your Office 365 ProPlus
Do you want to know more about the subject or your Office 365 ProPlus or other Office 365 or Microsoft 365 subscriptions and deployments? Please reach out to one of our consultants to help you.

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