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…