If you want to compare the components that are included in the Microsoft 365 and Office 365 plans for Enterprise and Frontline Workers, then there’s an updated comparison document from Microsoft that you’ll find useful. It’s a comprehensive five pages long and you can find it here: https://bit.ly/2LG4gqi.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Volume Licensing for Government brochure
If you want an overview of the Volume Licensing agreements available for government customers then you may find this new overview brochure useful.
It covers the agreements available for all sizes of government customers and is up-to-date with changes such as the retirement of the Open License Program announced recently.
Find this brochure here: https://bit.ly/3p5mlN0.
New Power Platform partner website
Microsoft launch a new site to help partners find resources around the Power Platform products.
There are pages for each of the products – Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power Virtual Agents – with a comprehensive set of resources for each, as well as information on programs such as Catalyst and FastTrack which help customers realise value from Microsoft solutions.
There’s also help on building a Power Platform practice and links to training resources and other useful sites such as the Business Applications Microsoft Partner Community and the Power Platform blog.
Find the announcement here: http://bit.ly/39UfX4O, and the site itself here: http://bit.ly/3ocNRqD.
Update on the old Azure offer in CSP
Microsoft announce an update on the old Azure offer in CSP. Today, there are two offers that a partner can transact to sell the Azure consumption services to their customers: the “old” Azure offer which is the original way that partners transact these services, and the new Azure plan which is billed via the new commerce platform.
When the Azure plan launched, Microsoft were clear that at some point the old Azure offer would be retired, and there’s now information on the timeline for this to happen. Firstly, customers new to Azure will only be able to purchase through the Azure plan from 21 July 2021, then partner incentives for the old Azure offer will be retired sometime in 2022, and in the third phase, on a date to be determined, customers on the old Azure offer will be migrated to the Azure plan.
Find the announcement with a few more details here: http://bit.ly/3iEmhBu.
General Availability of perpetual software licences in CSP
Microsoft announce the General Availability of perpetual software licences in CSP from 21 January 2021.
Commercial customers can now buy licences for a range of on-premises products through any CSP partner. This was previously only available for selected partners in some geographies, and additionally both the range of products and geographies are extended with this launch – if you’re interested in what’s been added, there’s a useful document here: https://bit.ly/3oehDLx, and the announcement itself is here: http://bit.ly/3iOCunF.
The Product Terms document is also updated with an additional CSP column to show availability of the on-premises products through this channel.
Further changes to the Open License Program
Back in October 2020 Microsoft announced that commercial customers wouldn’t be able to buy through the Open License Program after 31 December, 2021 (http://bit.ly/393LlhZ). A recent article confirms that this will also apply to government, education and nonprofit customers in the same timeframe.
These customers will be able to buy perpetual licences for the traditional on-premises products in CSP in July 2021, and there will be additional Open Value options from March 2021 for nonprofit and education customers to buy licences with SA or to renew SA.
Find the article here: http://bit.ly/39693dH, where it might be worth perusing the FAQs at the bottom of the page.
Microsoft Product Terms site
The Microsoft Product Terms site launched on 1 July, 2020 with the aim of ultimately replacing the Product Terms and Online Services Terms documents.
The new site allows customers to filter content and review only the use rights and conditions relevant to their needs, to save a downloadable version of the use rights, to compare older use rights to the current ones, and to choose to use one of 35 different languages.
If you haven’t looked at this site yet, then it’s time to prioritise getting to grips with it since the existing Product Terms and Online Services Terms documents won’t be available after 1 February, 2021.
Have a quick read of the FAQ here: http://bit.ly/2HVsabn, and then access the site here: https://bit.ly/2ByfWq2.
Power Apps Licensing Guide
There’s an updated (December 2020) Power Apps Licensing Guide, with the main change being the updating of the term “UI flow” to “desktop flow”.
Find this updated document here: https://bit.ly/3r8WUvg.
Qualified Educational User Definition document
For customers to be eligible to purchase academic edition products they must meet the criteria detailed in the Qualified Educational User Definition document.
This document was updated in December 2020 to specifically include CSP as part of the Microsoft Customer Agreement, and now public libraries and public museums are eligible academic customers in the CSP program.
Find the updated document here: http://bit.ly/3bCGNP8, making sure you choose the right one for your region.
Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide
There’s an updated (January 2021) Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide.
Customer Insights customers are now entitled to Customer Voice capabilities (page 15), and there are other minor language changes and clarifications detailed in the Change Log on page 57.
Keep your Licensing Guide collection up to date by grabbing this new document here: https://bit.ly/38i3uIK.