Visual Studio Community 2013 is a new collection of the Visual Studio Express SKUs. It’s free to download and is aimed at open source developers, startups, students, and hobbyists who can use it to do everything from desktop development to Store development to Azure and ASP.NET development.
Read the announcement and get news on other updates to Visual Studio here: http://bit.ly/1uHr0F2.
Certain IBM software is now available to run on Azure virtual machines and it’s licensed either with a Bring Your Own Licence (BYOL) or Bring Your Own Software and Licence (BYOSL) model, depending on whether you’ll be installing and configuring the software yourself (BYOSL) or using a Microsoft VM with the software provided (BYOL). This site from IBM is a useful resource if you need to know more: http://ibm.co/1xhcaH8.
Microsoft announce that they are introducing on-premises use rights for CRM Online. Users with a CRM Online Professional or Enterprise USL will have Professional CAL rights, CRM Online Basic USLs will have Basic CAL rights, and CRM Online Essential will have Essential CAL rights – as you’d expect really!
See the announcement here: http://bit.ly/1tBAzzL and check out page 35 of the October 2014 PUR.
An FAQ document is always a nice resource to have and this MPSA one has 16 pages of answers to those questions you may still have. The Operations section is particularly useful with its information on orders, promotions and concessions.
Get the document here: http://bit.ly/1ssAA9Q.
The Enterprise Agreement Program Guide has been updated to include the 1 December 2014 release of the Enterprise Cloud Suite.
This document has some useful information on how the Enterprise Cloud Suite offers an alternative user-licensed platform for the EA, and there are a couple of pages of ECS FAQs too.
Get the guide here: http://bit.ly/1j8qQli.
The Windows 8.1 Licensing Guide from Microsoft is updated for Windows per User. This is a veritable treasure trove of information! Use it to find out about the new Windows SA per User Add-on and Full USLs, as well as their VDA counterparts.
There’s information on the retirement of the Companion Subscription Licence and how MDOP now extends across multiple devices if Windows is licensed by user.
You’ll also find the downgrade rights for both device and user Windows VL licences, and a useful table showing the SKU availability by VL program. Get this great document here: http://bit.ly/19WbhCI.
There’s a slight change to the Home Use Program rights: previously the wording stipulated that the software could be installed on one home computer and one portable device, now it’s on up to two devices which can be either 2 PCs or 2 Macs, dependent on what’s been purchased.
See page 69 of the November 2014 Product List.
Windows Companion Subscription Licences will have the same use rights as if they were Windows Enterprise SA per User Add-on USLs, starting on 1 December 2014.
See page 77 of the October 2014 Product Use Rights document.
Windows will be available to license on a per User basis from 1 December 2014.
Find out all about both the Add-on and Full USLs that are coming, by sitting down with our latest “Coffee Break” video – just 10 minutes and all will become clear!
Find the video here: http://bit.ly/LSyoutube.
Microsoft announce the Enterprise Cloud Suite which is BIG news for Enterprise Agreement customers! Essentially, it’s a new suite which allows you to license the desktop platform completely by user.
Office 365 and the Enterprise Mobility Suite cover the traditional Office and CAL Suite components and there’s a brand new Windows per User licence.
Yes, that’s right, Windows per USER. Get an At-a-Glance guide on ECS and some more detail here: http://bit.ly/13umyz1