Downsides to OEM and Retail Office Suite Purchases

OEM and retail suites lack enterprise deployment rights and technical capabilities provided in volume licensing. This table lists the most important rights and capabilities that organizations get with Office 2010 suites in volume licensing, and their status in Office 2010 suites purchased preinstalled on PCs (OEM) and at retail.

Retail and OEM software media do not enable volume activation, which is required for automated deployment. They do not permit centralized deployment on servers to multiple clients through technologies such as Remote Desktop Session Host (formerly Terminal Services), virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), or Microsoft Application Virtualization. As with volume license suites, a single primary user may remotely access Office on a licensed computer via technologies such as Microsoft’s Remote Desktop; however, retail and OEM suites do not permit another user to access the licensed device remotely except to provide support services. OEM and retail licenses do not grant downgrade rights, and the user may not install and run multiple instances of Office on the licensed device. No retail or OEM suite includes rights to Office Web Apps, Lync, InfoPath, or SharePoint Workspace. OEM and retail channels do not offer Work at Home licenses, which are discounted licenses that an organization may buy to cover its users’ home computers.