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Options for Acquiring Office

If your organization is in the planning stages for Microsoft Office XP, you may want to explore the different options for purchasing or licensing the product. While Office XP is available worldwide through retail outlets, businesses and organizations can benefit from participating in volume licensing programs designed especially to meet their needs.

A new option for small businesses and individuals is the Office XP subscription program, which offers a lower entry cost, yet provides the full power of Office for a specified duration. Other organizations may also want to consider licensing Office XP as a client application running on Microsoft Windows Terminal Services.

Licensing programs

Microsoft Volume Licensing programs offer more flexibility, greater value, and easier license management for organizations than the purchase of a retail packaged product. By acquiring a license, you are granted permission to legally copy and redistribute Office XP within your organization. Licensees are eligible for a range of extra services, upgrades, and other benefits, depending upon the terms of their agreements.

Different licensing programs are available, depending upon your requirements and the size of your organization. For more information on volume licensing programs, contact your software reseller or see the Microsoft Business Licensing Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/business/licensing.

Subscription programs

The Office XP subscription enables customers to acquire software for a specified period of time. The subscription license provides a lower initial cost of acquiring Office XP, yet provides full use of all features, tools, and capabilities for the term of the subscription. Additionally, the subscription license entitles active subscribers to automatic upgrades of Microsoft Office, ensuring that customers always have the latest version of Microsoft Office running on their computers. Microsoft Office subscription is available for Office Professional and Office Small Business suites.

Office XP as a client on Windows Terminal Services

The terminal services technology of Microsoft Windows 2000 Server can deliver the Windows 2000 desktop, as well Office XP, to virtually any desktop computing device, including those that cannot run Windows. When a user runs Office XP through terminal services, all of the application execution takes place on the server — only the keyboard, mouse, and display information are transmitted over the network to the client computer.

If you elect to deploy Office XP as a client on Windows Terminal Services, you will need to acquire one license for each client computer that makes use of the Office applications.

For more information about Office XP licensing on Windows Terminal Services, see the Licensing Office for Terminal Server Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/terminalserver/exec/EOMAP/OfficeandTSE.asp.