These days there are a lot of different Online Services and for some of them you can buy individual licenses – Exchange Online, for example. Often there are different plans which license different amounts of the functionality – Exchange Online…
Downgrade and down-edition rights don’t apply to the Online Services.
With traditional, on-premises software there’s the notion of versions and editions: Windows Server 2025 Standard, for example. The version tells us how new the technology is, and the edition tells us how much functionality there is. There’s no notion of…
User Subscription Licenses are assigned to individual, named users, and although licenses may be reassigned between users, in common with the on-premises software licenses, this is typically no more than every 90 days.
Online Services are generally licensed with User Subscription Licenses (User SLs) with just a few products licensed with Device Subscription Licenses (Device SLs). The licenses are always non-perpetual, just allowing access to the service for as long as the subscription…
Use this section to get some general information on how the Online Services products are licensed and then get more detail in the individual product sections that follow.