Office 2010 Licensing – From Retail to Volume Licenses
Overview
As with nearly any Microsoft product, not only do you have a plethora of editions to choose from, you also have many different licensing options available to meet most anyone’s needs.
If you need more information on the various editions of Microsoft Office 2010, take a look at my article titled “Office 2010 – Pricing and Editions.”
For more information on Microsoft Office SharePoint 2010, click here and for more information on Exchange 2010, look here.
We will look at Office 2010 licensing for both retail and volume licenses including volume licenses with software assurance. Retail licensing is up first.
Retail
Three of the five main Office 2010 suites will be released via retail meaning that you can waltz into a store or hop online to your favorite web store to purchase these editions.
Office Home and Student 2010 will include Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote and will retail for $149.99. This edition allows for installation on up to three home PCs. This product cannot be installed in a commercial, government, nonprofit or other revenue generating organization.
Office Home and Business 2010 includes the applications included in Home and Student edition, but adds Outlook 2010 to the mix. This edition retails for $279.99 and can be installed on one PC – whether at home or a commercial organization.
Office Professional 2010 includes all of the applications from Home and Business, but adds in Publisher and Access 2010. Office Pro retails for $499.99 and can be installed on a single PC.
Volume Licensing
When buying Office 2010 for a corporation, you are likely to benefit from purchasing via a volume licensing agreement. Smaller organizations can purchase under an Open License or Open Value agreement with a minimum of five licenses. Larger organizations can purchase under Select or Enterprise agreements, which typically require a much larger investment of about 250 licenses.
Two editions of Office 2010 will be released via volume licensing.
Office Standard 2010 includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote and Publisher.
Office Professional Plus 2010 includes those applications included in Office 2010 Standard plus Access, InfoPath, Communicator, SharePoint Workspace and advanced server integration features.
In addition to the base products included in each edition, Office 2010 volume licenses also include access to Microsoft Office Web Apps – an online set of Office tools such as Word and Excel – much like Google’s Docs offering.
Office Standard is available for the following volume license programs:
- Select
- Select Plus
- Open Value (non-companywide)
- Open Value Subscription (non-companywide)
- Open
Office Professional Plus is available for the following volume license programs:
- Enterprise Agreement
- Enterprise Subscription Agreement
- Select
- Select Plus
- Open Value (companywide)
- Open Value Subscription (companywide)
- Open
Pricing will vary greatly depending on which program you choose, but to give you a picture of the cost, below are a few examples for smaller organizations:
- Open License Only – Standard Edition - $373 (minimum five licenses required)
- Open License Only – Professional Plus Edition - $508 (minimum five licenses required)
- Open License + Software Assurance - Standard Edition - $588 (minimum five licenses required)
- Open License + Software Assurance – Professional Plus Edition - $765 (minimum five licenses required)
Software Assurance
Several of the volume license editions of Office can be purchased stand-alone or with Software Assurance benefits. Software Assurance (SA) offers several benefits to your organization and end-users. Below are some of the biggest benefits:
- New Software Versions – organizations with active Software Assurance can get new versions of software for no charge.
- Home Use Program – employees can receive low cost (about $10) licenses for use at home.
- Training – online self-paced and interactive training.
- Multi-language User Interface – editions of Office that support multiple languages.
Office 2010 Licensing can cause nightmares and headaches due to the plethora of options and editions, but hopefully this guide has helped you out!