Microsoft has an unexpected ‘Gotcha’ for business customers running Linux or Mac OS – they’ll need to buy an Office licence to legally use Office Web Apps...
Microsoft made plenty of noise about the Office Web Apps from its just-launched Office 2010 suite being free and running on Linux and Mac systems as well as Windows.
But it seems there’s a catch, at least for business customers who’ve moved some of their staff away from Microsoft’s OS.
According to Microsoft, a company which hosts the Office Web Apps on its own server using SharePoint 2010 will need to buy an Office license for each user of the lightweight Web apps – even if those users aren’t running Windows.
The rationale is tied to Microsoft’s volume licensing deal under which a company purchases Office licenses by the hundreds, thousands or even more.
Although Office Web Apps are ostensibly free, with businesses able to run them as an add-on for the SharePoint 2010 server software, it seems that the apps can be installed only if the company has a volume license for Microsoft Office.
So if a company had 100 staff running Windows PCs with Office 2010, but another 50 on linux plus an additional 20 on Apple Macs, they’d be up for 170 Office 2010 licenses.
Microsoft vice-president for the Office Business Platform Jeff Teper
told tech journalist Tim Anderson that “you do need a volume license for each user.”
And while Teper allowed that Microsoft ‘s volume licensing “is tailored to each customer (and) we will do specific things for each customer’s need… the blanket statement is that its available for volume license customers per user.”
Asked if this meant that a Linux user need a license for Microsoft Office in order to access Office Web Apps, Tepper replied “Yes, that’s our default licensing.”