This is a fairly complicated licensing question and I'm hoping some of you have some experience with this and can answer this question:

We currently use Adagio in a Workstation/Server environment and we have Microsoft Office 2007 installed and licensed on 22 workstations. When we use the direct Excel link from Adagio it opens in Excel locally. We are looking at replacing our server and running Adagio in an RDS environment, while leaving Microsoft Office to run locally. So my question is, if our local Microsoft Excel is not RDS compliant, how will we use the excel direct link from within Adagio? Is it possible from a licensing perspective to run Adagio in an RDS environment while running Office locally?

Susan,

My understanding is that Office must be licensed on the RDS server for the amount of RDS users you want to be able to use it. So you would pay for the RDS CAL and the MS Office CAL. The RDS profiles are basically your "workstations" and therefore Excel Direct will only look for the Excel exe on that profile on the server.

So if you don't want to pay the Office licensing for all the new RDS users, you would have to use Open Office for the Excel Direct function to work.

It doesn't stop you from using Office on the local machines. But Adagio won't be able to "find" your Excel (or Outlook if you're using MAPI) on your local desktop.

So is it an option if the desktop running Office from the Remote Desktop Server has a local license of the same version of Office that is on the RDS server? Or are you saying that we must have RDS Microsoft Office licenses to use the Excel direct link from Adagio? If so, will that 1 RDS compliant license per user also give us the rights to use Office locally for the same user?

What I am saying is that RDS user profiles are running on the server not on your workstation. Therefore, they are like a new machine and you will need to have a license to run Office in that environment if you want Excel Direct to work. In that case you will need to order Office licenses per user when you order the server and RDS licenses.

My assumption is that your workstations have OEM licenses on the local machines and not open licensing by user (since you said it's 2007). If you did in fact have user licenses, you would be paying annually for the right to upgrades for Office and the licenses are not tied to the physical machine, much like your Adagio renewals entitle you to upgrades and allow you to move it to new equipment when the old is replaced.

All that being said, MS Office pricing schemes have changed a lot with the advent of 365, etc. And I'm not aware of all those changes and you should consult an expert that sells the licensing. They should be able to explain the pros and cons of the different pricing.

The important thing to know, from a functional standpoint, is you can continue to use your Office on the local machines without buying new Office licenses for the RDS. But you won't be able to use any office applications inside the RDS profile where Adagio will be installed and thus Excel Direct won't work unless you install Open Office and configure it.