Office 365 ProPlus Licensing Brief

There’s an updated (April 2020) Office 365 ProPlus Licensing Brief. The main changes are to include additional options for deploying Office 365 ProPlus in shared public cloud environments, and to update for the changes to the licensing terms for Outsourcing Software Management in October 2019.

Find this updated Licensing Brief here: https://bit.ly/ProPlusVLApr2020

April 2020 Online Services Terms updates

The very useful table on the last page of the Online Services Terms document which shows you which components are included in which Office 365 and Microsoft 365 plans is updated for April 2020.

The main changes are for the revised Firstline Worker plans with Office 365 F1 renamed to Office 365 F3, Microsoft 365 F1 renamed to Microsoft 365 F3, and the new Microsoft 365 F1 added. OneDrive for Business Plans 1 and 2 are added while some other components are removed, including the now discontinued Azure Information Protection Plan 2.

Find the Online Services Terms documents here: http://bit.ly/MSproductterms.

Name changes to some Office 365 and Microsoft 365 plans

Microsoft announce that there will be name changes to some Office 365 and Microsoft 365 plans from 21 April, 2020. Here’s the summary:

For the Business plans aimed at customers requiring less than 300 users:

  • Office 365 Business Essentials becomes Microsoft 365 Business Basic
  • Office 365 Business Premium becomes Microsoft 365 Business Standard
  • Microsoft 365 Business becomes Microsoft 365 Business Premium

For the Office applications:

  • Office 365 Business becomes Microsoft 365 Apps for business
  • Office 365 ProPlus becomes Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise

For the consumer plans:

  • Office 365 Personal becomes Microsoft 365 Personal
  • Office 365 Home becomes Microsoft 365 Family

Changes to the names are automatic in all the relevant portals, and there are no changes to any pricing or functionality with the exception of the consumer plans where additional, new Microsoft 365 features are added.

Find the main announcement here: https://bit.ly/2yF3yCX, additional information on the consumer plans here: https://bit.ly/3bPge8q, and information for partners here: https://bit.ly/3e1Line.

Device-based licensing for Office 365 ProPlus

Microsoft announce that an Office 365 ProPlus device add-on licence will be available for EA and EAS customers in the summer of 2020.

This will effectively allow an Office 365 ProPlus licence to be assigned to a device so that multiple users can use Office 365 ProPlus on that device, whether or not they have their own User SL for Office 365.

A similar add-on was made available in August 2019 for education customers with an EES, where the add-ons are free as long as all Education Qualified Users are licensed with an Office 365 ProPlus User SL.

Find the latest announcement for commercial customers here: http://bit.ly/2KSJjnB and recap on the education offer here: http://bit.ly/30enR2Z.

General Availability of Windows Virtual Desktop

Microsoft announce the General Availability of Windows Virtual Desktop on 30 September, 2019: http://bit.ly/33abTIG. This page is a useful reminder of the licences required to access WVD: http://bit.ly/2UxKalz, and it’s been updated with the changes to the Microsoft 365 licence assignment rules where customers can now assign Microsoft 365 licences to any user, regardless of the user’s primary device, to use WVD and Office 365 – see the September 2019 Product Terms for details. If you’re a partner, then you’ll find some useful partner resources on WVD here: http://bit.ly/33fm4eS.

Planner comes to F1 plans

Microsoft announce that Planner will be added to Microsoft 365 F1 and Office 365 F1 commercial and government plans starting at the beginning of October 2019. The Planner functionality is the same as in higher level plans, and there’s no action for a customer to take.

Find the announcement here: http://bit.ly/2lStHb5.

Office 365 ProPlus Device-based Subscription for Education

Microsoft announce an Office 365 ProPlus Device-based Subscription for Education, which means that educational institutions can now assign an Office 365 ProPlus licence to a device rather than a user – useful, of course, where shared devices are used.

The experience for users is that those who DO have a User Subscription Licence including Office 365 ProPlus will be able to use the apps on the licensed device as well as their associated cloud services like OneDrive, while completely unlicensed users will be able to use the apps on the device and to save files locally. Using Office 365 ProPlus in this way doesn’t count towards one of the five allowed installations for a licensed user.

This new, free, add-on licence is available from 16 August, 2019 for customers who have an Enrollment for Education Solutions (EES) agreement where they’ve covered all Education Qualified Users with Office 365 ProPlus or a suite that includes it. They’re then entitled to as many Device-based Subscriptions as the number of Education Qualified Users.

The Device-based Subscription replaces the Lab and Library benefit that was the previous solution for institutions needing Office installed on a device basis, and note that this benefit remains for OVS-ES agreements where the new solution is not available.

Find the announcement from the Microsoft Education team here: http://bit.ly/30enR2Z, and refer to this page for deployment instructions: http://bit.ly/2KSJjnB.  

Changes to Office 365 Client Licensing and Activation

Microsoft announce that there will be some changes to the licensing and activation of the subscription-based Office clients such as Office 365 ProPlus.

Users will be able to install Office on a new device without being prompted to deactivate Office on another device when they reach the five-device limit, and will simply be signed out of Office on the device where Office has been least recently used.

These changes will start rolling out to customers from August, with exact timings dependent on which release channel a customer is using.

Find the full announcement here: http://bit.ly/2JZZctp.