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.
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 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.