Updates on CRM pricing and licensing: promotional pricing for buying CRM Online Professional, Office 365 E3 and PowerBI together is extended until the end of September 2015, after that CRM Online Professional will be available at a discount for Office 365 customers, and CRM Server 2015 is now certified for deployment on Azure if you have Software Assurance.
Read the full article here: bit.ly/1MlRntb.
Organisations buying Visual Studio with MSDN through the MPSA will use a brand new portal to manage their MSDN subscriptions.
There’s a just-released Administrator’s Guide which has 24 pages of useful knowledge including admin for large teams and external contractors, how to add administrators to the portal, as well as all the day-to-day tasks of assigning subscriptions along with instructions for the Bulk Upload facilities.
Get the guide here: http://bit.ly/1fYNT2V but note that existing subscriptions are still managed through VLSC, so the VLSC Admin Guide is worth a look too: http://bit.ly/1ucJ3hm.
Customers can now buy Azure consumption services through the MPSA paying for what they use quarterly in arrears, rather than making an upfront monetary commitment as EA customers do.
Later in the year, on 1st September, customers will also be able to buy the Enterprise Cloud Suite (currently only available through the EA) and to purchase certain Online Services subscriptions in one, two or three year durations – all with price protection.
Get the background in this Microsoft blog post: http://bit.ly/1V2eThL.
Microsoft will release a new Office 365 plan called E5 before the end of 2015.
This suite will include cloud PBX and PSTN conferencing, Power BI Pro, Delve, and new advanced security features such as Data Loss Protection (DLP) and Advanced Threat Protection (ATP).
See the Microsoft announcement here: http://bit.ly/1K7I2SB.
Visual Studio and MSDN products are now available to order through the MPSA.
There’s a brand new portal to manage MSDN subscriptions purchased under the MPSA while existing subscriptions continue to be managed via VLSC.
Read the Microsoft blog post and see some screenshots of the new portal here: http://bit.ly/1O5UnaF.
SPLA comes to GLR! If you’re already a fan of Get Licensing Ready then you’ll know that it’s a great way of testing your existing licensing knowledge as well as learning topics you’re less familiar with. Now there are four new modules for the Services Provider License Agreement (SPLA), so if you need to get up to speed with how Microsoft licensing works under SPLA, then download the handouts, watch the videos, and get a tick in the box by passing the exams: http://getlicensingready.com.
Microsoft announce the September changes to the MPSA at the Worldwide Partner Conference: ECS arrives, and there are new multi-year Online Services subscriptions.
New Office 365 E5 plan announced at Microsoft’s Partner Conference!
Microsoft announce that Office 2016 for Mac is now available. It includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook, and is available today to qualifying Office 365 subscribers and as a one-time purchase option in September.
Read the official announcement here: http://bit.ly/1UFyG6A.
From 1st July the Product List and the PUR are combined into one document – the Product Terms.
Read Microsoft’s blog post as they explain the benefits of this new consolidated monthly document: http://bit.ly/1T7ZBGs.