[German]Microsoft removes unlimited Office licenses from the Home Use program. This means that only discounted Office 365 subscriptions are possible in future.
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The Home Use Program (HUP) offers authorized companies the opportunity to license Windows 10 or Office at a discounted price to employees. An interesting option in the past.
What HUP says to Microsoft Office
Microsoft describes the Home Use Program on this web site. Currently the following quotation can be found there:
The Microsoft Home Use Program allows employees at eligible companies to buy an annual subscription of Office 365 Home or Office 365 Personal at a discount for use on personal devices.
So there is a possibility for employees of companies who have licensed Office to get Office licenses at a reduced price. Currently, only annual subscriptions to Office 365 Home or Office 365 Personal are mentioned as products.
In the past, Office licenses were also available for an unlimited period of time
In the past it was also possible to buy an Office license (e.g. as Professional Plus license) at a reduced price via the Home Use Program. I mentioned this, for example, in the German blog post Microsoft Office 2016-Angebot für 13,95 Euro. For a bargain price, you almost got a license that never expires (unless the employer terminates the volume license program for these license keys, or if the employee leaves the company).
Only subscriptions for Office 365 in the future
Now that's the end of it – this article at neowin.net brought the change to my attention. Microsoft has removed all unlimited Office licenses from the Home Use Program (for Office 2013 to 2019 this was actually the Professional Plus version). On the Microsoft Home Use Program web site you can read that in the section 'What has changed in the Home Use Program' more details.
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Microsoft is updating the Home Use Program to offer discounts on the latest and most up to date products such as Office 365, which is always up to date with premium versions of Office apps across all your devices. Office Professional Plus 2019 and Office Home and Business 2019 are no longer available as Home Use Program offers..
Short summary: Employees can only book discounted subscriptions in the Home Use Program, which must be updated annually.
