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Office Online Server now available

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Editor’s note 12/04/2017:
For customers whose licenses qualify for OOS but do not have access to the Volume License Servicing Center, the following actions are possible: 

  • VL or Open customers can contact their Support Center.
  • Direct customers can submit a request from their Office 365 admin center or contact support.

We are excited to announce the release of Office Online Server (OOS), which allows organizations to deliver browser-based versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote, among other capabilities. Microsoft recognizes that many organizations still value running server products on-premises for a variety of reasons. With OOS, you get the same functionality we offer with Office Online in your own datacenter. OOS is the successor to Office Web Apps Server 2013.

OOS scales well for your enterprise whether you have 100 employees or 100,000. The architecture enables one OOS farm to serve multiple SharePoint, Exchange and Skype for Business instances. OOS is designed to work with SharePoint Server 2016, Exchange Server 2016 and Skype for Business Server 2015. It is also backwards compatible with SharePoint Server 2013, Lync Server 2013 and, in some scenarios, with Exchange Server 2013. You can also integrate other products with OOS through our public APIs.

While OOS runs on your own servers, we are working hard to give you the same experiences you would get if you used our cloud service. For example, real-time co-authoring will now be enabled in Office Online Server. We will deliver most of the new Office Online features to OOS through regular updates.

When used with other servers, OOS makes a variety of scenarios possible:

  • When you integrate OOS with SharePoint Server 2016, generally available starting today, you can create, share and collaborate on Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote files in your browser. Most notably, OOS with SharePoint lets multiple people work in a document at the same time and see everyone’s changes as they happen. OOS also works with SharePoint Server 2013, Lync Server 2013 with Office Web Apps Server 2013 and, in some scenarios, with Exchange Server 2013. So be at ease if you’re still running them—you will not need to run both Office Web Apps Server 2013 and OOS.
  • By integrating OOS with Exchange Server 2016, you can view and edit Office file attachments in Outlook on the web and send back a reply without ever leaving your browser.
  • With Skype for Business Server 2015, OOS enables high fidelity viewing of PowerPoint Online when sharing PowerPoint presentations during meetings.

With exception of those who have access through the Open Program, customers with a Volume Licensing account can download OOS from the Volume License Servicing Center at no cost and will have view-only functionality, which includes PowerPoint sharing in Skype for Business. Customers that require document creation, edit and save functionality in OOS will need to have an on-premises Office suite license with Software Assurance or an Office 365 ProPlus subscription. Customers that purchase an on-premises Office 2016 suite through Volume Licensing before August 1, 2016 will be exempt from the Software Assurance requirement through August 1, 2019. For more information on licensing requirements, please refer to our Product Terms.