Application Licensing in VMware App Volume

Many customers have asked if application virtualization could reduce software licensing costs, and my answer has always been simple—ask your application vendor. For Microsoft Office, the answer is no. None of the application virtualization solutions for Microsoft Office will reduce Office licensing costs. All Microsoft Office applications purchased as a software product are licensed per device, where “device” is a physical or virtual system that runs Microsoft Office applications or a system that is used to access Office applications remotely. Each license permits only one user to access the software at a time. The only exception to this rule is the subscription-based model that is licensed per user. Also important to note is that neither of the following purchase scenarios permits network use:

• Microsoft Office retail purchase (the fully packaged product)
• Acquisition of Office with hardware that includes the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) licensing

In other words, for most VDI scenarios you can use only Microsoft Office editions that are available with Microsoft volume licensing. These include Office Professional Plus 2013, Office Standard 2013, and Office 365 ProPlus. You cannot use Office Home & Student or Office Personal editions on VDI.