Microsoft offers students at eligible educational institutions access to full Office

[jamesbmarshall]

I'll just leave this here...

 

Microsoft UK Education Cloud Blog - Learn About Office 365 Education

 

[funkyfin2000]

Fab news! What impact does this have if the school has an EES agreement? They can effectively upgrade to Office 365 Pro Plus for free?

[TheMrB]

ooooh

Might pass this on to the NM. Thanks for that.

Be interesting to see how we're effected with the W@H stuff.

[fiza]

Fab news! What impact does this have if the school has an EES agreement? They can effectively upgrade to Office 365 Pro Plus for free?

 

ditto ^^

[CyberNerd]

So does this mean I can now run office over Citrix/RDP again like I could in the pre 2003 days?

[FN-GM]

@jamesbmarshall what if you do not use Office 365? Can you still get office for free?

 

Thanks

[jamesbmarshall]

Fab news! What impact does this have if the school has an EES agreement? They can effectively upgrade to Office 365 Pro Plus for free?

 

No. As the post says, if you cover staff/faculty for Office on your VL (OVS-ES, EES) then the Student Advantage benefit allows you to licence Office 365 ProPlus for students at no additional cost.

 

@jamesbmarshall what if you do not use Office 365? Can you still get office for free?

 

If you don't use Office 365, sign up!

 

This is not "free Office". Please read the blog post carefully.

[CyberNerd]

This is not "free Office". Please read the blog post carefully.

 

You'll need to spell it out to me please

 

From 1st December, 2013, any institutions worldwide that licenses Office for staff and faculty can provide access to Office 365 ProPlus for students at no additional cost.

 

Office 365 ProPlus includes all the familiar and full Office applications, such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and offers the ability for these to be locally installed on up to five devices and available offline.

 

If office 365proplus includes 5x licenses then does that mean students get free office or not?

[FN-GM]

If you don't use Office 365, sign up!

 

This is not "free Office". Please read the blog post carefully.

 

We have EEES licencing with onsite exchange no Office 365. So does that mean we can't use it?

 

For Office 365 it would be to costly to journal all the emails. Plus at the moment we cannot be reliant on the internet connection.

[jamesbmarshall]

You'll need to spell it out to me please

 

"From December 1st, any institutions worldwide that licenses Office for staff and faculty can provide access to Office 365 ProPlus for students at no additional cost."

 

That's pretty clear.

 

We have EEES licencing with onsite exchange no Office 365. So does that mean we can't use it?

 

Not necessarily. The Student Advantage is delivered through Office 365. Office 365 Education Plan A2 is not required for students to leverage this benefit.

[FN-GM]

Not necessarily. The Student Advantage is delivered through Office 365. Office 365 Education Plan A2 is not required for students to leverage this benefit.

 

But that means we have to sign upto office 365??

[Griff]

Confusing stuff....

[jamesbmarshall]

But that means we have to sign upto office 365??

 

If you haven't already, then yes.

 

Here's the official answer:

 

My school only has on premises Office Professional Plus for facultyand staff via EES/OVS-ES. To take advantage of the offer do I need to sign upfor Office 365?

 

 

Yes. To takeadvantage of the benefit, schools will need to order the Office 365 ProPlus forstudents $0 subscription. If a customerdoes not have a pre-existing Office 365 tenant, one will need to be establishedwith the Office 365 ProPlus for Students SKU. Those licenses will then need tobe assigned and distributed to the students with instructions on how toinstall.

[CyberNerd]

"From December 1st, any institutions worldwide that licenses Office for staff and faculty can provide access to Office 365 ProPlus for students at no additional cost."

 

That's pretty clear.

 

 

Ok, So I have some Office licenses (for staff), I can give away free ones to students after 1st Dec. correct?

[jamesbmarshall]

Ok, So I have some Office licenses (for staff), I can give away free ones to students after 1st Dec. correct?

 

If you've covered all of your staff for Office via OVS-ES or EES volume licence subscriptions then you can licence students for Office 365 ProPlus for no additional cost under Student Advantage, via Office 365.

 

I know it might be confusing, and this has literally only just gone live this afternoon (2pm), so please keep an eye on our blogs, Twitter feed, Facebook page, etc. as there'll be more posts, answers, Q&A sessions etc. to go into more detail about what this means for your students and staff.

[FN-GM]

If you haven't already, then yes.

 

Here's the official answer:

 

My school only has on premises Office Professional Plus for facultyand staff via EES/OVS-ES. To take advantage of the offer do I need to sign upfor Office 365?

 

 

Yes. To takeadvantage of the benefit, schools will need to order the Office 365 ProPlus forstudents $0 subscription. If a customerdoes not have a pre-existing Office 365 tenant, one will need to be establishedwith the Office 365 ProPlus for Students SKU. Those licenses will then need tobe assigned and distributed to the students with instructions on how toinstall.

 

Feel totally let down, office 365 isnt any good for us. A little unfair how you are not offering it other customers.

[chazzy2501]

This means in December I can go to the Office 365 Admin Center go to "purchase services" and purchase 750 "Office 365 ProPlus A for Students" for £0.00 each. Rather than the current £1.27 per month.

 

Currently "Office 365 Education A2 for Students" is priced at £0.00 (Of which I have 750)

 

This means after a Dirsync (When I get around to it) the pupils can login to office 365 and download a copy of office pro to their personal PC.

Edited October 15, 2013 by chazzy2501

[elsiegee40]

I am sorry James, but I am being thick here possibly. Would it be possible for you spell this out in simple terms for the feeble minded please?

 

Many of us have EES microsoft office

Some also have microsoft exchange EES

Some use Office 365 which is already free

 

What does this announcement actually mean?

 

EDIT

Hopefully chazzy's post above is the answer... I understand that.

Edited October 15, 2013 by elsiegee40

[CyberNerd]

Surely you can just sign up and use the giveaway without actually using it?

We certainly don't plan on using it until it gets as good as Google apps, but I'll happily sign up for 10,000 'free' copies of full office.

[jamesbmarshall]

Feel totally let down, office 365 isnt any good for us. A little unfair how you are not offering it other customers.

 

You don't have to use Exchange Online, Lync Online or SharePoint Online to benefit from Student Advantage (although clearly I think you should ).

 

This means in December I can go to the Office 365 Admin Center go to "purchase services" and purchase 750 "Office 365 ProPlus A for Students" for £0.00 each. Rather than the current £1.27 per month.

 

No. You will have to get the licences from your licensing reseller and add them to your VL agreement. This will not be available via the "purchase services" section of the portal. Once you've done that the licences will appear in Office 365 for you to assign to your student users.

[fiza]

@jamesbmarshall - What about those of us who get Office 365 via the LGFL?

[jamesbmarshall]

I am sorry James, but I am being thick here possibly. Would it be possible for you spell this out in simple terms for the feeble minded please?

 

Many of us have EES microsoft office

Some also have microsoft exchange EES

Some use Office 365 which is already free

 

What does this announcement actually mean?

 

It means that if you licence your staff for Office via OVS-ES, or EES, you can licence students for Office 365 ProPlus for no additional cost. Office 365 ProPlus is the version that allows you to install Office on up to 5 devices. (Office 365 ProPlus)

 

Office 365 Plan A2, while free, does not include Office 365 ProPlus. It only becomes available for no additional cost when you have your staff licensed for Office via your volume licensing agreement.

[fiza]

Looks like we are stuffed then!

We have EES for all our onsite licences but our Office365 is supplied by London Grid so its 2 separate entities.

[chazzy2501]

This is a bloomin' awesome! Just to double spell it out for me. I have EES with a FTE of 101 I purchase office, windows upgrade, server and exchange. I'm entitled to ask softbox for 750 proplus licences.

 

Also will they auto renew

 

Can you install on a mac (for those mac peasants!)

[jamesbmarshall]

Looks like we are stuffed then!

We have EES for all our onsite licences but our Office365 is supplied by London Grid so its 2 separate entities.

 

You're not stuffed, but I don't have an answer that I can share in this forum today unfortunately.

 

The announcement is today, the availability is December. When I have an answer I can share about schools in your situation believe me I'll make it known!

 

To everyone that might have a question, if you think I'm being a bit stuffy in my answers please understand that there is very careful guidance about how I can respond to your questions at the moment. I'm doing my best. I'm very happy that you're asking lots of questions, and I'll do my best to be clear and provide answers.