From a licensing perspective, Office 365 ProPlus is part of the Microsoft 365 subscription. Because it's a subscription, there are certain important requirements and features. They are as follows:
- Licensing is user-identity based, meaning a user must have an Azure AD account and have an Office 365 ProPlus license associated with it.
- Office 365 ProPlus can be installed on up to five different computers (Windows PC or Mac), five tablet devices, and five mobile phones with one single-user license, for a total of 15 installations. Users activate their subscription by signing in with their tenant credentials.
- Office 365 ProPlus does support a shared computer activation configuration. Scenarios where this might be useful include if users share workstation devices (such as shift workers) or are configured to use non-persistent virtual desktop environments.
- Office 365 ProPlus is activated over the internet, so the licensing service that's deployed on the computer must be able to reach the internet to check in every 30 days and verify that the user still has a valid subscription. If the status cannot be verified, or if the user remains offline for more than 30 days, OPP goes into reduced functionality mode.
This is important and will show up on the exam. If a device is offline for more than 30 days, OPP will be in reduced functionality mode. In reduced functionality mode, users can only view or print their documents. Other features such as edit or create will be unavailable.
When looking at this, a few benefits emerge:
- Since licensing is user-based, it's very easy to understand how many licenses need to be acquired. Users get a total of 15 that they can tie to their user account.
- When a user leaves the organization, their identity is typically deactivated and their license returned to the organization's pool. There's no need to worry about licensed "installations in the field" as they will stop working in 30 days.
- The update servicing mechanism is built-in by default, so installations will always be up to date and in a supported state.
The only potential drawback is for organizations that like to maintain their software as an "asset," since the subscription is an operating expense instead of a capital expense.
As you can see, there are some important choices to make when deploying technologies, updating and servicing methodologies, as well as choosing a product and licensing model that achieves your organization's business needs.