Monthly Archives: October 2014

Project Server 2013 Licensing Guide

If Microsoft Project is your thing then you might find this Project 2013 Licensing Guide from Microsoft useful. It’s got a nice overview of all the different Project licences, although it’s not yet updated for Project Lite.

There are also diagrams showing the licences required in a 3-tier on-premises deployment, a Project Online configuration, and a dev/test environment.

Finally, there’s some useful information about when a Project Server CAL is needed as well as some FAQs.

Get the guide here: http://bit.ly/LSAppSvrs

End of Sales dates for Windows in FPP and OEM

Friday 31st October 2014 sees End of Sales for certain flavours of the Windows client: Windows 8 will no longer be able through the Retail channel, and Windows 7 Home Basic, Home Premium, and Ultimate cease to be available pre-installed.

However, there are no End of Sales dates yet published for Windows 7 Professional or Windows 8 acquired through the OEM channel, which means that these products will be available for at least another year.

See the Windows Lifecycle Fact Sheet for all the dates: http://bit.ly/1FUEAsX.

 

BizTalk 2013 R2 Licensing Datasheet: July 2014 Changes

Changes to this datasheet include amending the rights of the Developer edition so that they match the Enterprise edition, and a new Appendix which covers how customers should transition from the Processor to Core licensing model.

Most notable are instructions for those organisations with active SA who didn’t migrate to BizTalk Server 2013 but are now ready to go to BizTalk Server 2013 R2, since they’re eligible for the special self-inventory terms that would otherwise have expired on 1 April 2014 – see page 7.

Get the datasheet here: http://bit.ly/1we7W05.

Microsoft SAM and VL Competencies Updated

The Microsoft SAM and Volume Licensing partner competencies are updated to include the new Exam 74-678: Designing and Providing Microsoft Volume Licensing Solutions to Large Organizations, with a reminder that the 671/672 exams won’t be available after January 2015.

There’s also a new optional exam for the SAM competency – Exam 74-674: Delivering Business Value Planning Services – one of my all time favourite courses to teach! Get the full October 2014 MPN Disclosure Guide here: http://bit.ly/1s94d1X.

Partner Quotes added to Get Licensing Ready Exams

Partner Quotes is the latest module to be added to the Get Licensing Ready set of exams.

This tool is for partners to prepare quotes for their Enterprise Agreement customers and means that they can prepare a preliminary CPS for a standard quote quickly and easily.

It supports complex agreement structures too and speeds up the process, and accuracy, of generating the required paperwork for customer sign-off.

Check out GLR here: https://GetLicensingReady.com.

Exam 74-678 sample Software Assurance questions available!

This is the final part in our series of questions to help you check out whether you know enough to pass the 74-678 exam.

Each test is a random 20 questions on all of the different SA benefits – do you know which ones meet which customer needs and the programs that they’re available through?

Take a test here: http://bit.ly/74-678, and don’t forget to register if you want to know when all our other resources are released.

Overview of the Changes to the October 2014 Volume Licensing Product List

This month it’s Office 365 that dominates the changes to the Product List but there are some interesting changes to the Windows Rental Rights too, just to keep the balance.

New Office 365 SMB Plans

  • Three new Office 365 Plans aimed at the small and medium sized business are available both through the customer portal direct from Microsoft, and also through Open and Open Value Volume Licensing programs, for up to 300 users
  • Office 365 Business includes the Office applications and OneDrive, Office 365 Business Essentials includes Lync, Exchange and SharePoint Online Services, as well as OneDrive, and Office 365 Business Premium includes everything. This is the official availability announcement: http://bit.ly/1D3c0mU
  • There’s confirmation on page 55 about what happens to product key redemption for Office 365 Midsize Business – this product is available until 30 September 2015, after which time unredeemed subscriptions may be used for a successor product

From SA USLs

  • This is the third successive month that the From SA USLs have featured and this time it’s the turn of Project and Visio. It’s confirmed on page 50 that there’s From SA USLs available for Visio Pro for Office 365 as well as Project Pro and Project Online with Project Pro for Office 365, all only available through an EA
  • There’s also new wording added on page 10 for customers who bought Office 365 suites before 1 August 2014 – they’re allowed to renew into From SA USLs at their next Enrolment renewal

Windows Rental Rights

  • The main news here is that Windows Rental Rights have been expanded to include consumer editions of Windows. The table on page 24 shows that Windows 8/8.1 and Windows 7 Home Premium are now qualifying operating systems but there is a restriction for non-Pro versions of Windows – devices may only be rented to individuals for non-commercial use

Other news…

  • There’s a slight name change in the Office 365 Plans mentioned on page 9. A3 and G3 are no more – apparently we should now all refer to them as Education E3 and Government E3, with the commercial offering being Enterprise E3
  • See page 59 for some perhaps overdue confirmation that a user with an Enterprise Mobility Suite USL may access and use the relevant Online Services on up to five devices
  • Power BI for Office 365 is re-categorised as an “Other Online Service” on page 9, which makes it eligible for a one-year subscription in the table on page 42
  • And it’s farewell (at last!) to Exchange Server 2007 Standard for Small Business which means that all that’s left of the Small Business products is Small Business Server 2011…