Remote Desktop Services in Office 365

*** Update 9 September 2014 *****

*** Please see this update – https://blog.ciaops.com/2014/09/installing-office-365-pro-plus-on-rds.html ***

It has been brought to my attention that this post has figured in a recent APAC Google Enterprise newsletter. Having seen the newsletter and being disappointed in the negative approach it has taken to Office 365 I have decided to provide the following points to balance the attempt to insinuate in any way that Office 365 is inferior by what I detailed originally.

1. In no way does the issue below prevent Office 365 services (such as email and collaboration) from operating or reduce their functionality in any way.

2. The subset of customers who this applies to is extremely small when compared to the overall market.

3. Alternate solutions from Microsoft are available.

4. The inclusion of full desktop productivity applications is something that no other vendor provides, to my knowledge, with their cloud offerings.

5. Each qualifying user can install Office desktop software, for MAC or PC, from Office 365 on up to 5 devices.

6. This is the way the product has always been (since Office 365 was launched), so nothing has effectively changed.

7. I still firmly believe desktop software via Office 365 provides the most cost effective solution for customers looking to keep up to date with the latest products they are familiar with, want to use and will work with and without an Internet connection.

Let’s see all products compete on what benefits they provide to end users and not waste energy elsewhere.

I leave the original post unchanged below and also point out that at any time in the future this licensing can be changed. 

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Please note that this post supersedes any of the information I have posted previously on this topic. I also hope I have all this right (fingers crossed).

After further research and contact with Microsoft to get the ‘correct’ information on Remote Desktop Services with Office 2013 Professional Plus via Office 365, in summary I can tell you that:

Any Office 2013 Professional Plus product purchased via the Office 365 console is NOT licensed for Remote Desktop Services no matter what the SKU or plan.

The details are:

At this Office 365 link:

Enterprise value – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj900171.aspx

under the heading Desktop virtualization (user-dedicated VDI and RDS) it says:

“Only Office 365 ProPlus customers with a volume license version of Office Professional Plus 2013 can use Remote Desktop Services (RDS).”

Thus, from the Service Descriptions table in my previous post:

You see 2 subscript. That reads (my emphasis):

“Office 365 ProPlus is supported on user-dedicated virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). To use Remote Desktop Services (RDS), you must use a volume license version of Office Professional Plus 2013, which is available on the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center. For more information, see Microsoft Volume Licensing” Product Use Rights.

This therefore means that WITHOUT Office 2013 Professional Plus Volume Licensing you cannot run use an Office 365 version of Office 2013 for Remote Desktop Services via ANY license.

My previous post highlighted that the Product Use Rights (PUR) listed the M (Mid size business) plan is being available for Remote Desktop Services. Revisiting that more carefully  you find:

Again, if you have Volume Licensing then the M SKU allows Remote Desktop Services.

Here is a response from Microsoft (Partner Technical Consultant) in regards to the issues around the Office 365 M SKU and Remote Desktop Services mentioned in a previous post (my emphasis):

I just got confirmation from the license team.

Both service description and PUR are correct.

If customer purchases Midsize business plan from Office 365 portal, this M plan does not have rights for RDS.

However, if customer purchase Office 365 Midsize business through an Open Business agreement(Volume license), this M plan has rights for RDS.

That is why Office 365 service description lists M plan does not have RDS access permission (as it is for customers who purchase from O365 portal) and PUR lists Office 365 M plan has RDS access permission (as it is for customers who purchase via Volume licensing).

I hope this information address your question.

Now the issue here in Australia is slightly different as for purchases of <250 generally they are completed through the exclusive syndication partner, Telstra. This includes the M SKU. That being the case, the M SKU is therefore not available to be purchased in Australia via Volume Licensing. So, in Australia, the M plan is also excluded from Remote Desktop Services.

This is the response I received from Microsoft Australia Office 365 Product Manager to my previous posts:

I believe you have been blogging on the licensing construct for RDS in Office 365.  I wanted to make sure that you have the official response from Microsoft as it relates to Office 365 and specifically in Syndication in Australia.

With this update of Office 365, Microsoft has addressed the need for customers to run Office 365 ProPlus in virtualized environments using a combination of technical improvements and licensing terms. Functionally, Office 365 ProPlus supports dedicated Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) environments, but does not work in other configurations including Remote Desktop Service (RDS) and Windows To Go scenarios.

For virtualization situations where Office 365 ProPlus does not work, Microsoft has created a licensing-based workaround that allows customers with an Enterprise Agreement to install Office Professional Plus under the terms and conditions of the Office 365 ProPlus license Product Use Rights (PUR).  This work-around, unfortunately, does not apply to Office 365 procured via syndication, as described within the Reseller User Rights (RUR).

The current user rights allow for the following:

Program	SKUs	VDI	RDS
EA	ProPlus, E3, E4	Yes	Supported using Professional Plus download
Syndication	Midsize Business, ProPlus, E3, E4	Yes	No

We have heard the feedback around the need for an Office 365 RDS solution for all our customers and even though we are not able to resolve this within our current systems and licensing constraints, we will advise if there is a change to the RUR sometime in the future.

Please see the appropriate solutions as recommended by Microsoft in the case of a Remote Desktop requirement:

A.         Customer requires Remote Desktop and has 250+ seats.  Microsoft recommend that the customer consider signing an Enterprise Agreement with Microsoft, which will support the Volume Licensing work-around that is currently in place.  Please note that the M-SKU is not available on an Enterprise Agreement and will only allow for the E-SKU. 

B.         Customer requires Remote Desktop and has less than 250 seats.  Microsoft recommends that the customer purchase Office 365 E1/E2 SKU from Telstra and then purchase the required number of Office Pro licenses through your Volume License provider, as long as it is over 5 seats.

Summary

1. When you purchase any Office 365 plan from the portal or via a syndication partner Office 2013 Professional Plus DOES NOT include Remote Desktop rights.

2. To receive Remote Desktop right for Office 2013 Professional Plus via Office 365 you need to have an Office 2013 Professional Plus Volume License.

This means that Office 2013 Professional Plus via Office 365 basically has the same rights as the previous version of Office (2010 Professional Plus) had, that being no Remote Desktop or Terminal Server.

I’m sure that is going to disappoint many and I hope Microsoft does change this soon.