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

The most important changes this month are to do with the new Enterprise Cloud Suite and the associated Windows per user licensing. Read on for more details and an overview of the other changes too.

Enterprise Cloud Suite

  • The Enterprise Cloud Suite is available to Enterprise Agreement customers from 1 December 2014 as an alternative to the traditional Desktop Platform. It’s completely user-licensed and includes Windows SA per User (for the Windows Enterprise component), Office 365 E3 (for the Office apps and access to Exchange, SharePoint and Lync services), and the Enterprise Mobility Suite (for access to the core infrastructure services). Brand new customers can buy a Full USL to this suite with no prior commitment, while existing customers can either add on the services via an Add-on to their traditional Desktop Platform, or transition to this user-licensed suite via a From SA USL. Details are on page 48
  • If you were to compare the components of the Enterprise Cloud Suite with the Enterprise Desktop Platform then you’d notice that two elements are missing in ECS. These components are Exchange Online Archiving for Exchange Server and the System Centre Client Management Suite. However, there’s confirmation on page 14 that customers who have active Software Assurance on the Enterprise CAL Suite on 30 November 2014 receive Extended Use Rights for these products
  • Another thing that happens as part of the introduction of the Enterprise Cloud Suite is the re-classification of Add-ons to Enterprise Online Services. Previously, wording stated that if a customer had Office Professional Plus as an Enterprise Product and then used an Add-on USL to install Office 365 ProPlus on a Qualified Device without Office Professional Plus, they would be required to true up that device for Office. If you weren’t aware of that rule – never fear, the fact that E3 (for example) is now an Enterprise Online Service means that you would no longer have to true the device up for Office

Windows per User Licensing

  • There are three new Windows SA per User SKUs – the Add-on for customers who have existing Windows + SA licences but want to userfy their Windows licensing, the From SA USL if they want to transition from their existing Windows + SA device licences to user licences only, and a Full USL if there are no existing Windows + SA licences but they want user-based Windows licensing. All of these SKUs are available through the Enterprise Agreements with various assortments being available through EES, the MPSA and Select Plus. Find them listed on page 33
  • While the Windows 8.1 Pro and Enterprise Upgrade licences remain as device licences, when SA is added it can be added for the user or the device and all of the SKUs on pages 32/33 are updated to specify whether they’re user or device
  • There’s also a VDA per User licence, as well as the VDA device licence which remains, and they’re listed on page 33 too
  • The Companion Subscription Licence is removed and there’s a note on page 33 that from 1 December 2014 all existing CSLs have the same use rights as Windows SA per User Add-ons
  • The Qualifying Operating Systems table for Windows Upgrade licences is amended on page 34 to indicate the acceptable qualifying operating systems for a primary device when a user is licensed with Windows SA per User
  • Customers with an Enterprise Enrolment can elect to mix user and device licensing for Windows SA as long as all users who use unlicensed Qualified Devices are licensed with a Windows SA per User licence, and all Qualified Devices used by unlicensed users are licensed with a Windows SA per Device licence. The wording is on page 36
  • The rights to buy Windows SA per User are included as a Software Assurance benefit on page 66

Enterprise Mobility Suite

  • There’s now a Full USL available for the Enterprise Mobility Suite (previously it was just an Add-on) and that means that there are some associated new SKUs: Core and Enterprise CAL Suite Bridges are added for customers who are transitioning, as is a From SA USL. Bridges are required if customers move to the From SA USL and you can find the rules on page 47 as well as a reminder that the From SA SKUs can only be transacted at anniversary or renewal
  • All of the SKUs are available in an Enterprise Agreement and again there’s a variety of the SKUs shared between EES, CA/SA and MPSA – see page 46

MDOP

  • New text on page 17 states that an MDOP licence can be assigned to a user or a device, and if a user is licensed with the Windows SA per User Add-on then they may take advantage of MDOP functionality on devices that they use if their primary work device is assigned an MDOP licence
  • There’s also confirmation added on page 17 that MDOP subscriptions can be reduced when they’ve been acquired as an Additional Product

And finally…

  • There’s a new Azure Site Recovery plan added – rather than recovery to a customer owned site, recovery can be to Azure now; see page 46
  • There’s a note added to the Lync Online section on page 53 that clarifies that USLs are not required for external users or users not authenticated by the Lync Online service
  • There’s confirmation on page 63 that Yammer Enterprise is available for use with Office 365 K1 from 1 October 2014
  • There’s a new category of Planning Services – Dynamics Deployment Planning Services (DYDPS) and a whole host of other services added to the existing categories. Check out pages 68 and 69 for the, frankly rather exciting, range of new services added. There’s no excuse now for not having a thrilling set of deployment plans on the go
  • Dynamics CRM Server 2015 is added and all of the text about licence grants and upgrade/downgrade rights for previous versions of CRM Server is removed, with a note to refer back to the November 2014 Product List – see page 19. The very detailed tables of the uses permitted under the different CALs are removed too, and replaced with a sleeker summary