Office 365 ProPlus Delivers Per-User Office Subscriptions

[Dec. 29, 2014 note: A more recent version of this report, updated to reflect licensing and packaging changes, can be found at “Office 365 ProPlus or Office 2013 Professional Plus?“]

Office 365 ProPlus is a per-user subscription license for the Office desktop suite. Its per-user licensing and favorable pricing can reduce costs and simplify license compliance compared to buying Office 2013 Professional Plus, its closest counterpart. Office 365 ProPlus will particularly benefit organizations with users who access Office from multiple devices to perform their jobs, and organizations that adopt Microsoft-hosted Office 365 services such as Exchange Online. However, Office 365 ProPlus requires following Microsoft’s upgrade schedule and committing to ongoing payments, which will not make sense for organizations that want to stay on the same Office version over many years to limit costs.

Similarities of Office 365 ProPlus and Office Professional Plus 2013

An Office 365 ProPlus user subscription license delivers similar applications and rights to the Office Professional Plus 2013 suite that is commonly bought through volume licensing for deployment by an organization.