Author Archives: licensingschool

Office 365 Dual Access Rights

Useful post on the Microsoft Volume Licensing Blog covering dual access rights with Office 365. Three key takeaways:

  1. There’s a good table showing which plans equate to which CALs (note that not all Office 365 plans include dual access rights)
  2. Underlying on-premise servers need to be licensed for users (SQL and Windows Server to support SharePoint, for example) and
  3. Office 365 USLs can be used to access licensed servers deployed on third party servers (licensed via Licence Mobility). http://bit.ly/1cdivtH

Windows 8.1 Licensing Guide

New Windows 8.1 Licensing Guide from Microsoft (http://bit.ly/19WbhCI). Licensing largely the same, as you’d expect, but three key clarifications:

  • Customers covered with SA retain perpetual use rights for Windows 8.1 Enterprise (even after SA has expired and regardless of whether they have installed the Enterprise edition – a change from the original October 2012 Windows 8 Licensing Guide – page 9)
  • VL customers with Windows 8 Pro without SA can upgrade to Windows 8.1 Pro, but active SA is needed to upgrade to Windows 8.1 Enterprise (page 5)
  • Confirmation that primary users of a device covered with MDOP and CSL are also covered for MDOP on their companion devices (page 13).

Announcement of Student Advantage

Microsoft announce a program where Office 365 ProPlus is free for students. It’s called Student Advantage and from 1st December 2013 “any academic institution that licenses Office for staff and faculty can provide Office 365 ProPlus for students at no additional cost.” More details are to be released over the coming weeks. Read the original announcement here: http://bit.ly/196fPJG.

Overview of the Changes to the October 2013 Product Use Rights Document

If, like me, you were watching for the calendar to tick over to the first of the quarter to see what would be new in the October 2013 PUR, then you may be disappointed in the changes that I’m about to detail. If you’re a slightly more well-balanced person, you’ll be relieved, as there are no major licensing changes revealed to get your head around.

I’ve decided to limit this blog post to the changes that affect us in October 2013 – there are some more changes that will make sense when Microsoft make announcements over the coming months and we’ll tackle those bits and pieces then.

The products that are added and deleted are very much what you’d imagine. We bid a final farewell to System Center Essentials 2010 and TechNet, while Windows 8 goes to 8.1, and System Center 2012 and Windows Server 2012 go to the new R2 versions with no changes to the licensing detailed. There’s more that’s changed on the CRM front simply because there’s a slightly different set of licences, and you’ll find updated sections both for the on-premise CRM Server 2013 and the new CRM Online offerings.

And then there are a few little bits and bobs that tidy up some loose ends. In particular, there’s confirmation that:

  • Users licensed with an Office 365 ProPlus USL may activate Microsoft Office Mobile on up to 5 smartphones (page 82)
  • External users invited to Yammer via external network functionality don’t need USLs (page 93)
  • Users licensed for Exchange Online Archiving for Exchange Server that have Exchange Standard CALs may access Exchange Server 2013 Enterprise CAL features to support the use of Exchange Online Archiving for Exchange Server (page 72)
  • There are a couple more use scenarios detailed for when a CAL is not required for Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2013 (page 42)

And for this month, that’s about it!

More Flexibility in Purchasing Windows Azure through an EA

Announcement from Microsoft regarding more flexibility in purchasing Windows Azure through the EA: “On Nov 1, Microsoft will offer Enterprise Agreement (EA) customers access to discounted Windows Azure prices, regardless of upfront commitment, without overuse penalties and with the flexibility of annual payments.” Read the full press release here: http://bit.ly/1e5qNRy

Overview of the Changes to the October 2013 Volume Licensing Product List

This month’s headliner is CRM in both its online and on-premise flavours. Although it’s not the place to go into the changes in the licensing here (a future blog post perhaps?) you’ll find that the new CRM Online licences replace the old, and all the CRM 2011 offerings are traded up to their 2013 equivalents. However, what’s perhaps more interesting is that there’s further useful CRM licensing information threaded throughout the document:

  • Planning Services: SQL Server Deployment Planning Services (SSDPS) now include deployment planning for Microsoft Dynamics CRM – I guess we should be grateful they didn’t try to get CRM into the (already long enough) acronym! There’s also confirmation that CRM CALs and Server licences are now qualifying licences to contribute points towards the Planning Services days. See pages 63/64
  • Transition rights: when a new product with a slightly different set of licences appears, specifics on the transition rights are always useful and pages 149-151 detail the SA migration path, downgrade rights, as well as the licence grants associated with the end of life of the CRM 2011 External Connector
  • CRM Online Support: pages 93-95 are devoted to a brand new section on various CRM Online Support Offerings

Office 365 Add-ons are cast in a supporting role this month. As a group, these are new offerings for EA customers to bolt onto their existing enterprise-wide CAL Suite commitment, and there are two items of note:

  • There’s a brand new Windows Azure Active Directory Rights Management Add-on User SL which customers who have the Enterprise CAL Suite as a qualifying licence may purchase. The tables on page 104 are a useful resource
  • There’s confirmation, also on page 104, that customers may buy Add-on licences before they buy the qualifying licences. Sound bizarre?! Essentially, it’s just confirming that between anniversaries, customers may acquire Add-ons and then true-up the desktop products in the usual way, and thus be compliant with their qualifying licences at that point

And finally, there are a few changes for Bing if that’s your thing:

  • The Bing Maps Public Website Usage 250K Transactions Monthly Subscription is removed – the remaining SKUs are for 100K and 420K transactions
  • A couple of other products (Bing Maps Enterprise and the Mobile Asset Management Platform) have a reported price decrease and thus decrease their points in the Select Plus program from 50 to 25 points
  • The section on “How to access the Bing Maps Service” is overhauled on page 127