Deploying Office 365 ProPlus

[Feb. 22, 2016 note: A more recent version of this report can be found at www.directionsonmicrosoft.com/research/secured/2016/02/deploying-and-updating-office-365-proplus.]

Organizations deploying Office 365 ProPlus can choose between two basic methods with different customization, restriction, and updating features. Office 365 ProPlus is an Office desktop suite sold on a per-user subscription basis. Deploying and updating it over the Internet makes updating easier for users, but it offers few customization options, and by default each user gets the whole Office suite of applications. Deploying and updating from on-premises servers gives administrators more control over which applications get deployed, and what gets updated and when. In addition, administrators can use current tools (for example, System Center Configuration Manager) to deploy and maintain installations.

This report covers deploying Office 365 ProPlus onto end-users’ Windows computers. Office 365 ProPlus can also be deployed in other ways, such as application virtualization (App-V) or running Office on a server and giving users remote access through Remote Desktop Services or RemoteApp technology available in Windows Server 2012 R2. These options are not discussed in this report.