Microsoft announce the availability of Forms for Office 365 Education customers, allowing users to create quizzes for assessments or surveys.
From a licensing perspective, it’s included in the Office 365 Education and Office 365 Education E5 plans, and you can find full details here: http://bit.ly/29q9wte.
There’s a new (July 2016) Operations Management Suite Pricing and Licensing Datasheet which has full details about the new OMS Subscription. Previously, OMS was only available as an Add-on to existing System Center licences with SA, but the OMS Subscription gives you access to all the Azure services of OMS as well as all of the System Center components for use with 1 virtual machine.
Find the Datasheet in the Core Infrastructure section of our Licensing Guides store: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.
Microsoft announce that “Enterprise Advantage” will be added to the MPSA in 2017.
Today, the Microsoft Products and Services Agreement (MPSA) allows customers with 250 PCs+ to purchase traditional licences, with or without Software Assurance, and Online Services on a transactional basis.
Enterprise Advantage will add a way for customers to purchase on a committed basis with similar requirements to the existing Enterprise Agreement. This, of course, is significant since 1 July marked the change of the minimum requirements for the EA from 250 to 500 users/devices.
Find the Microsoft announcement here: http://bit.ly/29dVfMI.
Interested in Microsoft Dynamics pricing? This site (http://bit.ly/1YrkNva) has pricing for all of the different licences, including the new CRM Online Field Service and Portal Add-ons, for all the different regions and different customer types.
If you’re in charge of managing licences for Office 365 for Business in your organisation then there’s a useful page with a whole host of articles on tasks such as assigning licences to users, and how you license non-user mailboxes.
Find it here: http://bit.ly/28TxpHH.
If you want an overview of the different ways that you can run SQL Server on Azure virtual machines, and how they’re licensed, then this Microsoft FAQ page is worth a read through: http://bit.ly/28TwWoH.
There’s a new (May 2016) Enrolment for Education Solutions Volume Licensing Guide. However, don’t be misled by the title – it’s not just the EES signed under CASA that’s covered, but also the Open Value Subscription – Education Solutions (OVS-ES) agreement.
It’s a comprehensive 27 pages of education licensing loveliness and has useful sections (among others) on Platform Online Services, the Student Use Benefit, the Server Platform option, and the Student option.
Find this guide in the Volume Licensing Programs section of our Licensing Guides store: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.
There’s a jolly useful FAQ on PSTN Calling which you might like to add to your list of interesting things to look at.
First, a reminder of what PSTN Calling is: the add-on telephone service that, when combined with Skype for Business Cloud PBX, can become your phone system. The FAQ covers what licences you’ll need as well as interesting issues such as how calls are charged if you travel to another country. The answer? If a user whose Office 365 licence is assigned in the US travels to London, any calls they make back to the US are considered domestic calls.
Find the FAQ here: http://bit.ly/28TU1bA.
There’s an updated (June 2016) “Licensing Microsoft Office software in Volume Licensing ” VL Brief which is updated for Office Online Server. This is the successor product to Office Web Apps Server 2013 and provides browser-based versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote from on-premises environments.
For details on the licensing, the FAQs on page 8 are useful, but in summary: there are no licences required for viewing documents, but create/edit/save rights are an SA benefit and included in an Office 365 ProPlus subscription.
However, there’s an exception which means that licences bought without SA before 1 August 2016 don’t need SA before 1 August 2019.
Find the guide in the Desktop section of our Licensing Guides emporium: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.
Microsoft announce Azure Information Protection, a new service that builds on Azure Rights Management (Azure RMS).
General Availability is expected later this year, when Azure RMS customers will receive expanded capabillities.
We’re told that more information on how to buy Azure Information Protection will be available closer to General Availability.
Read the full announcement here: http://bit.ly/28UrDEd.