Microsoft Help?

[Millgate]

Hi guys,

I know a lot of you come to me for this anyway but if you need any help, clarification or pricing on MS stuff, I've actually got a meeting with them today and they'll be here until 4ish so if you need anything, drop me an email and i'll help you out

Both Education and Corporate

Let me know

Luke

[sonofsanta]

Specific questions, or can we just have the general "why do you make it so complicated to give money to you"? You'd think at the point they started having to run training courses on how their licensing worked, they might twig that it's maybe a bit convoluted...

[X-13]

"why do you make it so complicated to give money to you"?

I'd rather "why do I have to buy new licences every time I need to replace a computer..." Or more simply "why aren't licences transferable"?


Damn greedy, Mick Roesoft.

[Millgate]

Both valid points chaps, i don't think the guys in our meeting are quite high enough up the ladder to change that though!

[CyberNerd]

clarification on VDI licensing wrt Academic Select please.

[carmeruk]

Byzantine is the word I'd use to describe the licencing arrangements. I know there's a healthy discount for schools, which I reckon is a fair exchange as we are educating the next generation of Microsoft users, but the cost and complexity of the licenses inhibit what I'd like to be able to do.

I'd virtualise a lot more of the infrastructure if I could afford it. But it seems I am going to end up paying twice for the same thing. There's a fair amount of this in the licencing. Or at least there's the perception there is. It's hard to tell without spending half a day on the phone, checking.

So I'd say to Microsoft please rationalise your licencing agreements. Perhaps have pre-built licence packages for a fixed cost.

Also could you ask them to sort Win 8 out for desktop users please. At the moment even looking at Metro invokes a special world of pain reserved for my worst support nightmares. Either that or bundle a touch pad with every copy.

Thanks

[Millgate]

VDI licensing is dependent on how you are deploying

VDI through Virtualisation (1 VM per Desktop) or Session based – requires the carrier protocol. The MS or Citrix solution uses RDP, so needs either a Remote Desktop Server CAL or VDI Suite subscription per desktop/user, as well as the desktop OS. The OEM OS that comes with the PC does not allow remote usage, so it requires either Software Assurance attached to the OS on the desktop, or the subscription license Virtual Desktop Access, which is a subscription to the full Win 7 OS to deploy to thin clients or to existing fat clients.
Software Assurance now comes with “Roaming Rights” for the OS and Office, so the primary user can access their desktop from ANY non company owned device at no extra cost such as home, Client PC, Internet café etc.

So the solution is
RDS CAL or VDI suite subscription
Software Assurance on OS (if eligible) or Virtual Desktop Access subscription

[Josepi29]

Be careful regarding the roaming rights guys! a point to note, yes it does mean any non company pc can access however if they use a notebook at home then decide to take that notebook to work = non compliance!

Don't get caught out and license orrectly the way around this is to keep an inventory on anyone doing the BYOD and ensure you can keep track on any BYOD on premises!