Accessing MS Office from Transient locations - Licensing

[inframan]

We have a number of users who all have fully Volume licenced Office on their
business laptops.

Occasionally when travelling it is inconvenient for them to access via their
laptops and we would like to give them the ability to access their lan data
and MS Office apps via terminal services accessing
from cyber cafes or airport lounge kiosks for example. We know we can do this
securely using SSL VPN to get back to our network.

We are trying to work out how the licensing for office applies though.

If a user accesses a MSoffice app via an airport lounge kiosk pc on Terminal
services or Via Remote web workplace does anyone know what is the MSoffice
licensing requirement? Thanks

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Inframan,

You may want to contact the folks at http://microsoft.com/licensing on this one. It may depend on what you have installed on the
laptop on whether you'd need both a Terminal Services license (CAL) and an Office license on the machines, as well as your overall
volume license plan options that are in place.

==================
We have a number of users who all have fully Volume licenced Office on their
business laptops.

Occasionally when travelling it is inconvenient for them to access via their
laptops and we would like to give them the ability to access their lan data
and MS Office apps via terminal services accessing
from cyber cafes or airport lounge kiosks for example. We know we can do this
securely using SSL VPN to get back to our network.

We are trying to work out how the licensing for office applies though.

If a user accesses a MSoffice app via an airport lounge kiosk pc on Terminal
services or Via Remote web workplace does anyone know what is the MSoffice
licensing requirement? Thanks >>
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

 

[inframan]

Bob, thanks, we are trying (really) to get some sense out of microsoft
directly on this. The best anyone has come up with yet is "Microsoft don't
license office to be used in this way." To which my response is "What!!!
Folks are allowed and actively encouraged to access microsoft office on their
work pc from home or on holiday for example using Remote Desktop but
Microsoft doesn't want users to be able to access Office in Terminal Services
that way." If my CEO is travelling wihtout his laptop then he wants to be
able to get at his data and applications from any internet browser. I can
make that happen using terminal services BUT it seems like I can't get
Microsoft to tell me how it should be licenced other than I have to buy
Office again for ANY PC he uses even if it is only 5 minutes at O'hare! Ouch.
Not very connected world friendly is it!

I can't believe there aren't other people out there already doing this!

Thanks again for taking an interest