Power BI Desktop licensing clarification

Power BI Desktop optimized for Power BI Report Server and the standard Power BI Desktop are two different applications designed for specific use cases.

1. Power BI Desktop optimized for Power BI Report Server: This is a special version of Power BI Desktop that is compatible with Power BI Report Server. This version is required when creating reports that will be published to Power BI Report Server. It includes additional features like the ability to save reports to the report server.

2. Standard Power BI Desktop: This is the regular version of Power BI Desktop used for creating reports and dashboards that are published to the Power BI Service (cloud).

Here's how the licensing works for these scenarios:

- Power BI Report Server Licensing: To deploy Power BI Report Server, an organization needs either a SQL Server Enterprise Edition with Software Assurance or a Power BI Premium subscription. This server license allows the server to host Power BI reports, along with traditional paginated reports, mobile reports, and KPIs.

- Power BI Desktop optimized for Power BI Report Server: Users creating reports to publish on Power BI Report Server need to use the optimized version of Power BI Desktop. There is no additional cost for using Power BI Desktop (either version). It is a free tool provided by Microsoft.

- Accessing Reports on Power BI Report Server: To view, interact, or manage reports on Power BI Report Server, users might require a license, depending on how the server is licensed:
- If the server is licensed through SQL Server Enterprise with Software Assurance, there's no additional license required for accessing the reports on the server.
- If the server is licensed through Power BI Premium, users who only need to consume the reports (view, interact) do not require a separate Power BI license. However, users who need to create or manage reports on the service would typically require a Power BI Pro license.

- Using Power BI Service (Cloud): If users are publishing to the Power BI Service (cloud), they would generally need a Power BI Pro license for publishing and sharing reports. The Power BI Premium subscription offers additional capacities (like more frequent data refreshes, larger data volumes, etc.) and can also cover viewers of the reports, meaning viewers do not need individual Pro licenses.

In summary, to use Power BI Desktop optimized for Power BI Report Server, the user does not need an additional license for the desktop application itself. However, the licensing requirements for interacting with the Power BI Report Server depend on how the server is licensed (SQL Server EE with SA or Power BI Premium) and what actions the user needs to perform (viewing vs. creating/managing reports).