Office 2010 Licensing changes...

[sky-knight]

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...

[mdh]

Originally Posted by sky-knight

The Office 2010 OPK, is no longer legal to use ...

WTF is OPK?

Originally Posted by sky-knight

*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...

Find that port and/or protocol and block it!

I smell more antitrust suits in the wind.

[sky-knight]

OPK = OEM Preinstallation Kit

It's a special set of tools produced for Windows and Office that allow system builders to preisntall systems. It's also the magic that allows Dell HP and the rest to brand windows with all their crap.

I don't use the OS preinstall kits, because I prefer to keep things clean and standard. The office OPK was the only way I could install OEM Office 2007, I also modified the thing so I could provide media to any customers that purchased office from me. I don't have to worry about that anymore, now that the Office 2010 trial is my installation disk it's easy enough to just get.

Legally speaking I'm not allowed to distribute the OPKs in any format. But, I did it anyway because I refuse to sell software my customers can't reinstall themselves.

[Mathiau]

i dont see anti-trust case since this is a seperate suite from windows and noe one is forced to use it

But didnt a US Judge rule that an EULA is not a binding contract because someone has to agree to it AFTER the installation or after the purchase of said product....

i guess why this only applies under trial installs..

[sky-knight]

That's just it, the EULA in this case is between Microsoft and the OEM not the customer.

So Dell agrees to pay Microsoft $2 per installation of Office (which will likely be every box they build thanks to Microsoft Works going away). Now that $2 expense will be passed on to the consumer, but at this point the customer has paid that $2 (if not more) to Dell. Then at the end of it all Microsoft gets to shove ads into the face of the end user. All this thanks to a legal agreement between the OEM and Microsoft...

Bottom line, the end user buys Office Starter, and still gets ads.

Remember what happened around here and the firestorm this community erupted into when Untangle first installed the ads? When things started you had to buy the branding manager to get rid of the ads... Untangle I trust simply didn't think about things much and logically stuffed the ad removal software in with the branding manager because that module changes the presentation of the block page anyway... it's a classic case of technical tunnel vision. We're all guilty of it at random points, and it's just a basic human error.

After the community pointed out we shouldn't see ads if we pay anything, the policy was quickly changed.

Will Microsoft suffer a similar backlash? Will Dell or HP actually stick up for their customers? Will the market actually punish these companies for not playing ethical ball?

Call me a cynic, but I think the answer to all three is no.

I guess I should reiterate for those that missed it... there will be no Office Starter installations going into any of my workstations. Buy a PC from me, and it comes clean. If you buy office, you'll get your license and instructions on how to use the trial to reinstall if you need to. It will of course be preloaded and activated to the hardware you bought.

Oh, and they changed the requirements of "hardware" around on the key versions... "hardware" used to mean any PC hardware... so you could get away with buying a thumb screw. Now "hardware" means motherboard or Hard drive.

Lets see if Microsoft has the balls to slap New Egg and Best Buy for selling that OEM version without hardware.

[Mathiau]

thats bad, thanks for the clarification, i am about to buy some license for home and business, glad this doesn't apply, i assume, but i can download the trial and then buy the license cards for cheaper.

[hescominsoon]

I'm going to look into this though for clients that want office..make a copy of the trial media..give them a card and they install..nice..i wonder if it's lower cost than volume licensing....

[sky-knight]

OEM is always cheaper than volume. Volume prices are based on the retail license.

However, keep in mind that OEM is locked to the hardware you install the software on. So there is no legally moving that copy to a new machine later. I prefer volume and retail personally, most of my clients end up using 1 office license on two PCs over time. So they only have to buy a new office for every other computer.

Then again I guess if you want current...

Anyway I just finished pulling Office 2010 down off my action pack, so I'm going to give it a look this weekend.

[dwasserman]

Action pack non-delivery the CD/DVD more?

[Solignis]

Unless you require special functions of MS Office.

"Captain, set a course for www.openoffice.org and www.mozillamessaging.com"