I have a client that, when we took them on, was subscribed to Office 365 ProPlus with 2 licenses. What they did was create 2 users, assign the licenses to those users, and then install Office 2013 on 10 systems in their office. 5 under one license, 5 under the other.

I told him these licences are supposed to be per user, not per device. He said he called and Microsoft told him he could install it on any 5 systems he wanted. The issue for me as an admin is this is a nightmare, this guy wants to save a few bucks so he's forcing a situation where I have to licence Office 2013 under a different account than the user who uses the system (who are also in Office 365, and licensed as EOL plan 1 users).

I actually thought this was more than a bit underhanded, and said we wouldn't help him do that. He said he called, and that this is totally fine by MS. I just can't believe that's true. Anyone know for sure? It just seems crazy that MS would say this is supported, and legit.

I have a client that, when we took them on, was subscribed to Office 365 ProPlus with 2 licenses. What they did was create 2 users, assign the licenses to those users, and then install Office 2013 on 10 systems in their office. 5 under one license, 5 under the other.

I told him these licences are supposed to be per user, not per device. He said he called and Microsoft told him he could install it on any 5 systems he wanted. The issue for me as an admin is this is a nightmare, this guy wants to save a few bucks so he's forcing a situation where I have to licence Office 2013 under a different account than the user who uses the system (who are also in Office 365, and licensed as EOL plan 1 users).

I actually thought this was more than a bit underhanded, and said we wouldn't help him do that. He said he called, and that this is totally fine by MS. I just can't believe that's true. Anyone know for sure? It just seems crazy that MS would say this is supported, and legit.

It's not explicitly forbidden by the licensing agreement, nor is it explicitly permitted, to use the entitlement in this way.

Whilst I might personally agree with your interpretation of the spirit/intent of the entitlement, it's kind of a grey area, there's "wiggle room" to do this sort of thing. It is known to MSFT that there are "gaps" in the model, but MSFT have to balance the loss of some revenues against a terrible/annoying licensing end-user experience. (which clever people will try to wiggle out of or bypass anyway)

O365ProPlus permits a single user subscription license to install ProPlus on 5 devices.
O365ProPlus permits any person (licensed/entitled, or not) to use ProPlus. Even if it has fallen back to Reduced Functionality Mode (become unlicensed).
It does mean that the ProPlus licensed users have to use their O365 identity on 5 devices to validate the license.
There's also nothing related to licensing which forbids a user to share their identity/password with other people.

I'm not a lawyer, nor a MSFT employee.

Thanks a lot Don. Now we have to figure out if we're willing to support this. Makes such a headache for us as an MSP. *sigh* some people.