Overview of the Changes to the May 2015 Volume Licensing Product List

There aren’t many changes to the Product List this month with the main amendments falling into two key areas. The first is the renaming of Lync Server 2013 to Skype for Business Server 2015 and that’s happened throughout the document. The components of the CAL Suites are updated to included Skype for Business Server CALs (page 19) and all the information on upgrades and licence grants for customers with Lync SA are removed and a reference is added to the April 2014 Product List (page 28).

Then there are some changes for government customers and these include the introduction of government-specific SKUs for the Enterprise Cloud Suite, Project Online, Project Lite, Project Pro for Office 365, Visio Pro for Office 365, and Office 365 Extra File Storage (pages 47, 55, 61). In addition, the Product List is updated to show more clearly which services are available under the US Government Community Cloud program – look out for a “UC” cell identifier – and, in particular, ECS is now available under GCC (page 47).

Finally, there are a couple of Education-specific SKUs added for Dynamics Marketing and Social Engagement (page 52).

Windows 10 Editions

Microsoft announce the editions that will be available for Windows 10. Here’s the summary:

  • Windows 10 Home (consumer desktops)
  • Windows 10 Mobile (smartphones and tablets)
  • Windows 10 Pro (small business desktops) – and these three editions will be available as the free upgrades for qualifying Windows 7 and 8.1 phones and devices
  • Windows 10 Enterprise (medium and large business desktops, available through Volume Licensing)
  • Windows 10 Mobile Enterprise (business smartphones and tablets, available through VL)
  • Windows 10 Education (education desktops, available through Academic VL)
  • There will also be Industry versions of Windows 10 Enterprise and Windows 10 Mobile Enterprise (ATMs, POS devices etc) and Windows 10 IoT Core (small footprint, low cost devices like gateways).

For the full story with some idea of the functionality included, read the Microsoft announcement here: http://bit.ly/1E8skk3.

Microsoft Project FAQ

Do you know your Project Online from your Project Pro for Office 365 from your Project Professional?

This useful FAQ gives you an overview of the different flavours of the Project client and answers questions like: can you install Project Pro for Office 365 on multiple PCs (yes, up to 5); what’s the difference between Project Pro for Office 365 and Project Professional 2013 (nothing, it’s just the licensing models); and the various ways you can be licensed to access the Project Web App.

Get the detail here: http://bit.ly/1PEEHev.

US Government Community Cloud

Government SKUs are available for the Enterprise Cloud Suite and Project/Visio for Office 365 in the May 2015 Product List. ECS is also available within the US Government Community Cloud program and the Product List is updated to show more clearly which services are available under this program – look out for a “UC” cell identifier.

If you want to know more about the GCC program and Office 365 features that are specific to this program, then this is a good resource: http://bit.ly/1JB3RsF.

Announcement of Microsoft Operations Management Suite

Microsoft announce the Microsoft Operations Management Suite which manages Windows and Linux workloads across a Windows Server datacenter, as well as Azure, Amazon Web Services, OpenStack and VMWare environments.

The Suite services are available separately charged as Azure consumption services, and an Add-on will be available for System Center Standard or Datacenter in July 2015 at an annual price.

See the announcement here: http://bit.ly/1HbQBgF and the pricing information here: http://bit.ly/1ErXNz6.

Licensing Changes for CRM Online Spring 2015 Release

Microsoft announce the general availability of the Spring 2015 release of the CRM Online family. There are no changes to the licences that are available for CRM Online, Dynamics Marketing, Social Engagement, and Parature but there ARE changes to what the licences give access to.

The detail on these changes is here: http://bit.ly/1zvUYQx and this is a good overview of the new features themselves: http://bit.ly/1AAaIxg.