I spent 4 hours on the phone with Microsoft yesterday and I figured I'd give everyone a heads up.
The Office 2010 OPK, is no longer legal to use unless you agree to the Microsoft Office Starter Edition license, which does many thing including forcing you to agree to Microsoft randomly auditing your sales records.
Office Starter edition is Word and Excel, stripped down, and AD sporting.
Office Starter Edition costs $5 / station to install. It costs $2 per station to install if you agree to install the BING toolbar, and Microsoft Live Essentials. Licenses must be purchased from Microsoft in lots of 10.
*Warning* Heads up, incoming Dell and HP's preloaded with more Microsoft fluff that you get to pay for AND Microsoft is going to advertise to you too! If you buy a machine without a full version of Office on it now you're officially paying to have Microsoft Advertise on your desktop. Enjoy...
On the up side! Microsoft has streamlined the delivery and licensing system of the Office 2010 package. There are now three standardized packages available in both Retail and OEM format.
Microsoft Office 2010 Home and Student
Microsoft Office 2010 Home and Business
Microsoft Office 2010 Professional
Home and Student includes Word, Excel, One Note, and Power Point. It is legal for non-commercial applications only.
Home and Business includes all of the previous software, and adds Outlook.
Professional is all of the above, and includes Publisher, and Access.
Basic Edition, a long time staple in my desktop builds is no longer there. However, the pricing on Home and Business has been reduced to match the old Basic Edition. So essentially there is no more Small Business edition, and you get Power Point for free vs the old pricing.
Finally, after a long conversation with one of Microsoft's Attorneys, and after I told them point blank it will be a cold day in Satan's realm before I allow them access to any of my financial details... they told me that due to the licensing simplification, all OEM and Retail serial numbers are now universally compatible. This makes the new OEM medialess licenses available, dubbed Product Key Cards, will upgrade an Office 2010 trial installation. So for all you OEMs out there... the easy way to install office for your clients and do what you've always done in the small OEM bracket is to sell your customer the appropriate Product Key Card, and use the trial as your installation media.
Finally, the OEM channel also has access to the Retail media carrying part numbers. These carry the full Retail license that allows relocation of the activated software. I have several clients interested in these licenses because they are legally movable to a new machine. Most of my clients tend to use a single office license on two machines over time, so it can save some money if used properly.
P.S. Anyone who uses Office in a terminal service environment, Office is no longer supported on terminal server unless it is volume licensed. No OEM or Retail installations are legal on that platform, and apparently there is something in the installer to prevent installation. The volume edition Office packages have different names... so double check things.
Enjoy...
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