Tag Archives: Office 365

Office for iPad Licensing

Office for iPad – the licensing facts:

  • Free apps allow viewing and presenting of documents and an Office 365 subscription allows creation and editing;
  • Office 365 subscriptions that include Office for iPad – Home, Small Business Premium, Midsize Business, E/G/A3, E/G/A4, Office 365 ProPlus, and Office 365 University;
  • One subscription covers Office for iPad on up to 5 tablets and Office on up to 5 PCs or Macs;
  • Office Mobile for iPhone and Android phones is now free as it is on Windows Phone.

Read the full Office Blog post here: http://bit.ly/1h23WFi.

 

OneDrive for Business Update

OneDrive for Business is one of those products still wriggling to feel comfortable in its own skin. Until recently known as SkyDrive Pro, it can trace its roots back through SharePoint Workspace and, of course, Groove. These days it’s part of every Office 365 Plan and is included with the SharePoint Online plans too. From 1 April 2014 it will also be available as a standalone service and will include access to Office Online and 25GB of storage. There will be some promotional pricing with discounts of up to 50% available until the end of September 2014. Get the full story on the OneDrive Blog: http://bit.ly/1doMJem

Office 365 Personal Announced

Microsoft announce Office 365 Personal which is expected in the “Spring”. The key facts:

  • One PC or Mac and one tablet may be connected to the service;
  • It will include 60 minutes of Skype calling per month as well as 20 GB of OneDrive storage; and
  • The ERP is expected to be $69.99/year or $6.99/month.

Office 365 Home Premium will continue to be available but will be renamed to Office 365 Home. Read the full announcement here: http://bit.ly/1d9wmwt.

 

A guide to maximizing Student Advantage for Office 365 ProPlus

A useful guide for education customers who want to get to grips with the Student Advantage option (that’s free Office 365 ProPlus for students when 100% of Faculty/Staff are licensed for Office). It goes through ordering, activation, deployment and provisioning: http://bit.ly/1hiNWB4

Yammer Enterprise added to all Office 365 Education Plans

Microsoft announce that Yammer Enterprise will be added to all Office 365 Education Plans from 1 April 2014. The blog post also details how customers will get Yammer Enterprise once it’s available: http://bit.ly/1l9j0YY

The Online Services Use Rights (OLSUR) – what sort of questions can it answer for you?

The Online Services Use Rights document has been around a while but it’s this month that it’s really come of age with the bulk of the use rights for the Online Services products being moved exclusively to it from the PUR. So, given that you probably don’t want to read this tome from start to finish, when’s it going to be handy for you in your licensing life? Here are ten questions that I think it’ll answer for you:

1. Can Online Services be used for an evaluation period?
No. Licences must be acquired to use Online Services for evaluation purposes – with the exception of Forefront Online Protection for Exchange. (Pages 8/18)

2. Does the 90 day rule apply to re-assigning USLs and DSLs?
Yes, with the usual exceptions of covering a user’s absence or the unavailability of a device that is out of service. (Page 9)

3. Does an Office 365 ProPlus USL allow use in an RDS scenario?
Yes. One of a user’s five activations may be used on a network server with the Remote Desktop Services role enabled. (Page 14)

4. How many smartphone devices can a user with an Office 365 ProPlus or E3/E4 USL use Office Mobile on?
Up to five. (Page 13)

5. Does an Office 365 ProPlus USL include Commercial Use Rights for Office Home and Student 2013 RT?
Yes. (Page 14)

6. Can a user licensed with a Project Pro or Visio Pro for Office 365 USL use the software on a device that has been activated by another user under a different USL?
Yes. (Page 14)

7. Project Online requires the use of SharePoint Online Plan 2 – does this need to be acquired separately?
No. SharePoint Online Plan 2 is commissioned as part of the Project Online service and, as you’d expect, may only be used to support Project Online. (Page 23)

8. Do users licensed with Lync Online Plan 1 USLs need further licences to attend a web conference?
No. (Page 19)

9. If a Windows Intune with Windows Desktop Operating System licence has been bought out, may it be transferred to another device?
No. (Page 9)

10. Can the Windows Intune with Windows Desktop Operating System licence be used in a Windows To Go deployment?
Yes. (Page 32)

Overview of the Changes to the January 2014 Volume Licensing Product List

If you look at the official changes in the January 2014 Product List you’d think there wasn’t much new this month, but read on for some interesting additions that go unadvertised…

Microsoft Products and Services Agreement

  • Let’s start with the Microsoft Products and Services Agreement. There’s been a lot of speculation about Microsoft’s Next Generation Volume Licensing initiative and this month the MPSA edges its way cautiously into the Product List. There’s not a lot, granted, but on pages 49/50 there’s advice to refer to Select Plus to find out what products you can buy under the MPSA, as well as confirmation that Office 365, CRM Online, Windows Intune and Yammer can all be purchased under the MPSA and are worth 1 point each. There’s also reference to an MPSA Licensing Manual which is worth a read: bit.ly/1a2TH1r

Office 365 Add-on USLs acquire access rights to Windows Server 2012

  • This is an interesting one; page 107 tells us that a licensed user of an Add-on User SL has access rights equivalent to the base Windows Server 2012 CAL, and may access standard functionality of Windows Server 2012 from any non-Qualified device. It’s a nice added touch of flexibility for anyone using the Add-ons with device-licensed CAL Suites

Office 365 through Open

  • We’ve talked a lot about more and more Office 365 plans becoming available through Open and the dizzy heights are reached with a new section in the Product List on page 59. There’s confirmation that Office 365 is sold through Open, Open Value and Open Value Subscription programs as a one year upfront payment method, as well as the fact that the subscription period starts at the time of the product key activation and not the time of order
  • There’s also a new section on page 46 on the Open Value Offer. If you’re not familiar with this, customers who have an active Open Value/OVS agreement with an organisation-wide commitment for Office Professional Plus and/or a CAL Suite qualify for a reduced price on certain Office 365 SKUs

There are some names changes:

  • The longest named product (ever?) – the Windows Azure Active Directory Rights Management USL – is renamed to the more manageable Microsoft Rights Management USL
  • The Cold Backups SA benefit changes to simply “Backup for Disaster Recovery” and you can see changes to the wording for this benefit on page 70 of the January Product Use Rights document

We lose some products:

  • It’s confirmed on page 146 that Forefront Unified Access Gateway 2010 will be the final version of the product. Customers with active SA on UAG server licences on 1 December 2013 get a grant of one Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard licence, and existing customers can add new server instances, users and devices without any requirement to order additional licences
  • Expression Encoder Pro 4 is removed, furthering Microsoft’s aim of unifying the Expression and Visual Studio brands. While Expression Encoder Pro 4 isn’t available for sale anymore, there’s a free version (Expression Encoder 4) available for download and it looks as if we’ll see Windows Azure Media Services providing new and improved functionality. More information here: http://bit.ly/KQxeyo

There are some changes to a couple of products’ use rights:

  • The buyout rights for Open Value Subscription customers with Small Business Server 2011 are amended, allowing customers to buy out an SBS 2011 CAL Suite or a Core CAL Suite (rather than Windows Server/Exchange CALs). And it’s a similar change for customers with the Premium Add-on Suite, where they’re now allowed to buy out the SBS 2011 Premium Add-on CAL Suite or a SQL Server CAL (rather than a Windows Server/SQL CAL)
  • In the December 2013 Product List (and Visual Studio 2013 Licensing brief) it’s stated that a Visual Studio Ultimate 2013 with MSDN subscriber is entitled to one management server licence for Visual Studio Deployment 2013 Standard, but that text is now removed

And the new promotions are all around Visual Studio 2013 this month:

  • There are three new promotions running from 1 January 2014 to 30 June 2014 – do check for availability in your specific geographic region
  • The first two are linked to the Server and Cloud Enrolment offering a 30% discount on either a step up from Visual Studio Professional to Premium, or Visual Studio Premium to Ultimate
  • The third is again a 30% discount, this time for both of the new Visual Studio 2013 Release Management products – Visual Studio Deployment Standard and Datacenter editions

Office 365 Switch Plans Wizard now supports switching between service families

If you’re given the wrong Office 365 plan for Christmas all is now not lost! The Switch Plans Wizard adds the capability to switch Office 365 plans across service families, so Small Business subscribers can switch to both Midsize and Enterprise plans, and Midsize Business subscribers can now switch to the Enterprise plans. Some of the restrictions remain: if you have more than 300 users you can’t use the Wizard; it’s still only for MOSA customers rather than customers who’ve purchased through Open; and any unsupported Wizardly switches must still be carried out manually. http://bit.ly/1exMwWl

Office 365 Dual Access Rights

Useful post on the Microsoft Volume Licensing Blog covering dual access rights with Office 365. Three key takeaways:

  1. There’s a good table showing which plans equate to which CALs (note that not all Office 365 plans include dual access rights)
  2. Underlying on-premise servers need to be licensed for users (SQL and Windows Server to support SharePoint, for example) and
  3. Office 365 USLs can be used to access licensed servers deployed on third party servers (licensed via Licence Mobility). http://bit.ly/1cdivtH

Announcement of Student Advantage

Microsoft announce a program where Office 365 ProPlus is free for students. It’s called Student Advantage and from 1st December 2013 “any academic institution that licenses Office for staff and faculty can provide Office 365 ProPlus for students at no additional cost.” More details are to be released over the coming weeks. Read the original announcement here: http://bit.ly/196fPJG.