Changes to the Office 365 Subscriptions

There have been a number of changes announced in recent weeks as to what’s included in various Office 365 subscriptions, so here’s the summary:

Office for the iPad

  • Back in March, Office for the iPad was announced and the free apps allowed viewing and presenting of documents whereas an Office 365 subscription was required for document creation and editing. In early November, the rules changed and the free apps now allow users to create and edit Office content while an Office 365 Subscription gives advanced editing and collaboration capabilities, and unlimited OneDrive storage. Check out the announcement here: http://bit.ly/1xxmi9Y

Office for the iPhone

  • Office for the iPhone was also announced in November with the same rules as for the iPad apps – so no Office 365 subscription required for creating and editing documents. Check this link for details (and pretty pictures of the new apps!): http://bit.ly/1vIcWwv

Outlook for the Mac

  • A brand new Outlook for the Mac was announced at the end of October with all of the enhancements you’d expect. What was perhaps less expected is that this new version is only available to Office 365 subscribers including commercial customers and those with Office 365 Home, Office 365 Personal and Office 365 University subscriptions. The announcement is here: http://bit.ly/1tqUVMv

OneDrive for Business

  • At the end of October it was announced that all Office 365 subscribers across consumer, commercial and education plans would receive unlimited storage: http://bit.ly/1FmJFqZ
  • Office 365 ProPlus customers now also have access to OneDrive for Business with an initial allocation of 1 TB of storage per user which will be updated to unlimited storage in the near future. This announcement (http://bit.ly/1r8572b) explains how the rollout will work with existing Office 365 ProPlus customers getting access to OneDrive for Business before the end of January 2015, and new customers who subscribe after 1 December 2014 being automatically provisioned for OneDrive

SA Benefits: CustomerSource

CustomerSource is confirmed as an SA benefit for Dynamics customers with either active SA or an Online Subscription. And what is CustomerSource? In the words of the UK Dynamics site: “CustomerSource is a secure site that allows you to access job-tailored productivity tools including unlimited training courses and self-support resources like the knowledge base.”

That’ll be useful stuff to do with Dynamics products then. See page 76 of the November 2014 Product List.

Microsoft Identity Manager (MIM)

MIM replaces FIM! Microsoft Identity Manager is the next major release of Forefront Identity Manager and will be available in the first half of 2015.

It’s an on-premises Identity and Access Management solution and will be part of the Azure Active Directory Premium offering.

Get an overview of the capabilities of MIM here: http://bit.ly/1vomSLj.

Visual Studio Community 2013 Available

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.

Licensing IBM software on Azure Virtual Machines

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.

Dual Access Rights for CRM Online

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.

MPSA FAQ Document

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.

Enterprise Agreement Program Guide updated for Enterprise Cloud Suite

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.

Windows 8.1 Licensing Guide updated for Per User Licensing

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.

Home Use Program Rights

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.