Microsoft offers students at eligible educational institutions access to full Office

[jamesbmarshall]

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!)

 

Come December, yes. Just speak to your reseller about Student Advantage.

[CyberNerd]

Can I use this version on RDP? or do student *need* to use the subscription version installed on their local computer?

[fiza]

@jamesbmarshall - Thanks I will look forward to some further clarification closer to the date.

 

Do you think the Office 365 'real-time' collaboration will be available by then also?

[john]

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

 

How is that a let down? For a few hours of work to setup O365 on a simple and basic level you can offer all your students free licenses for use at home for Office 365 which they can download and run on home computers as long as they are a student at your school. You just need to ask your reseller to license you for X number of the student licenses at $0 once they come out sounds a brilliant deal and just what was missing to me after the removal of cheap MS Office software.

 

Internally you do as you please and choose and it doesn't change anything you are doing currently so you keep your EES sub with MS Office, Windows, Exchange, SCCM etc.... I don't see the problem other than avoiding doing some prep and setup work as a one off. Its not like you will be using it internally so it shouldn't be seen as a problem if anything I'd say its preventing access to good software for free to enable the students to continue learning and using outside of the classroom.

 

 

That is all unless I have mis-understood what @jamesbmarshall has put?

Edited October 15, 2013 by john

[jamesbmarshall]

That is all unless I have mis-understood what @jamesbmarshall has put?

 

I'm just going to keep my response the same, a bit like a meditation chant...

 

"If you licence your staff/faculty for Office on your VL, then you can licence students for Office 365 ProPlus for no additional cost."

 

Repeat it slowly, with some atmospheric music and incense.

 

EDIT:

- read and inwardly digest! Edited October 15, 2013 by jamesbmarshall

[FN-GM]

How is that a let down? For a few hours of work to setup O365 on a simple and basic level you can offer all your students free licenses for use at home for Office 365 which they can download and run on home computers as long as they are a student at your school. You just need to ask your reseller to license you for X number of the student licenses at $0 once they come out sounds a brilliant deal and just what was missing to me after the removal of cheap MS Office software.

 

Internally you do as you please and choose and it doesn't change anything you are doing currently so you keep your EES sub with MS Office, Windows, Exchange, SCCM etc.... I don't see the problem other than avoiding doing some prep and setup work as a one off. Its not like you will be using it internally so it shouldn't be seen as a problem if anything I'd say its preventing access to good software for free to enable the students to continue learning and using outside of the classroom.

 

 

That is all unless I have mis-understood what @jamesbmarshall has put?

 

But really we shouldn't have to do that. Its just a push to get more people in Office 365.

[Edu-IT]

But really we shouldn't have to do that. Its just a push to get more people in Office 365.

Not really. You don't have to use any of the services on Office 365. If you don't want to sign up for Office 365 at all, you won't get the 'free' Office. Simple as that really. No point complaining how unfair it is as they aren't going to change it just for you.

 

Just to clarify, when you say license all staff, I assume that is just the FTE? As per normal licensing.

[Cache]

I'm still confused because I keep reading things different ways.

 

We licence the Education Desktop which gives us Office ProPlus 2013, but it doesn't specifically mention that, it mentions all 3 Office 365 versions and then just Office ProPlus.

 

Therefore, I'm unsure as to whether we qualify or not.

 

It's a shame if we don't as I was quite excited about it when I first read it.

Edited October 15, 2013 by Cache

[FN-GM]

Im not complaining really, free is free. Its just something we don't want to die into yet. I wont go into that here, but it means we won't benefit as yet. I just can't see why its tied to 365 only and not offered to other customers.

 

Thanks

Edited October 15, 2013 by FN-GM

[elsiegee40]

Im not complaining really, free is free. Its just something we don't want to die into yet. I wont go into that here, but it means we won't benefit as yet. I just can't see why its tied to 365 only and not offered to other customers.

 

Thanks

 

There are perfectly obvious business reasons for doing this. M$ may be giving software away for free, but they are not a charity. If they get students on Office, especially the 365 version, they will want to take it forward when the leave education which means money in the till. However, they still need office to be paid for.

[jamesbmarshall]

Therefore, I'm unsure as to whether we qualify or not.

 

Just ask yourself: do you licence Office for all your staff via your volume licence agreement? If so, you probably qualify for Student Advantage.

 

Im not complaining really, free is free. Its just something we don't want to die into yet. I wont go into that here, but it means we won't benefit as yet. I just can't see why its tied to 365 only and not offered to other customers.

 

Office 365 ProPlus is delivered and enabled by Office 365. As several others have pointed out, you don't have to use any of the other workloads in order to benefit from this announcement. Yes, you have to sign up if you've not used it before, and yes it would be awesome if you'd consider using the other workloads as well, but if you just want to sign up to get Office 365 ProPlus for your students then that's also fine. Signing up takes a few minutes of your time, and a bit of work with your licensing reseller to acquire the licences. In the coming weeks I'll put some blog posts up that step through the process to make it as simple as possible.

 

If you don't want to pass on this (quite frankly awesome, in my opinion) benefit to your students you don't have to, but think of it the other way round: why wouldn't you want your students to benefit from having the latest version of Office to use on their devices? If you're paying for your staff to have Office anyway surely it's a no-brainer?

 

Feedback about this, like anything, is important, would love to know your thoughts.

[jamesbmarshall]

M$ may be giving software away for free, but they are not a charity.

 

It's not free, it's "no additional cost"...

 

There is a requirement to licence your faculty/staff on your OVS-ES, or EES VL agreements in order to unlock this benefit.

[TheScarfedOne]

Just ask yourself: do you licence Office for all your staff via your volume licence agreement? If so, you probably qualify for Student Advantage.

 

 

 

Office 365 ProPlus is delivered and enabled by Office 365. As several others have pointed out, you don't have to use any of the other workloads in order to benefit from this announcement. Yes, you have to sign up if you've not used it before, and yes it would be awesome if you'd consider using the other workloads as well, but if you just want to sign up to get Office 365 ProPlus for your students then that's also fine. Signing up takes a few minutes of your time, and a bit of work with your licensing reseller to acquire the licences. In the coming weeks I'll put some blog posts up that step through the process to make it as simple as possible.

 

If you don't want to pass on this (quite frankly awesome, in my opinion) benefit to your students you don't have to, but think of it the other way round: why wouldn't you want your students to benefit from having the latest version of Office to use on their devices? If you're paying for your staff to have Office anyway surely it's a no-brainer?

 

Feedback about this, like anything, is important, would love to know your thoughts.

 

As if you hadnt given yourself a busy day already!! :-p

[jamesbmarshall]

As if you hadnt given yourself a busy day already!! :-p

 

I've been doing this job over 3 years. This is the busiest I've been, outside of BETT.

 

Still love it, every single day.

[CyberNerd]

There are perfectly obvious business reasons for doing this. M$ may be giving software away for free, but they are not a charity. If they get students on Office, especially the 365 version, they will want to take it forward when the leave education which means money in the till. However, they still need office to be paid for.

 

problem is that we've been burned by this before, quite badly. Remember when MS started offering MS terminal services? - all of a sudden all of students could get 'free' access to MSOffice with a relatively cheap external connector license. Everyone was happy until they suddenly changed the licensing on Office. It impacted our organisation quite badly to the point that SLT moved us to LibreOffice and then Google apps. My worry here is that its a subscription based install, so whereas before we could ride out the problem using an older version of Office, this could end a bit more painfully and more abruptly.

[jamesbmarshall]

problem is that we've been burned by this before, quite badly.

 

If you're concerned about the past, drop me a PM and we can talk. Things have moved on a bit in the last few years, not just licensing wise but technology wise. I know you're not the biggest Microsoft fan in the world, but I'm always happy to have an honest and frank discussion about your concerns if you want.

[CyberNerd]

If you're concerned about the past, drop me a PM and we can talk. Things have moved on a bit in the last few years, not just licensing wise but technology wise. I know you're not the biggest Microsoft fan in the world, but I'm always happy to have an honest and frank discussion about your concerns if you want.

 

Thanks, I appreciate that. I'll have to discuss this with SLT, but it was the lack of accessibility for students that was historically one of our major sticking points on migrating to MSOffice. I'm still not sure anyone would be up for a full migration, but giving away a few thousand copies of Office can only be a good thing (provided I can set the default to OpenDocument Format).

[Edu-IT]

Im not complaining really, free is free. Its just something we don't want to die into yet. I wont go into that here, but it means we won't benefit as yet. I just can't see why its tied to 365 only and not offered to other customers.

 

Thanks

Because that is the way the software is distributed. Look at it that way. How would you like them to provide it, and control access to who gets it at the same time?

 

Back in the day I had to sign up to an MSDNAA account to download software from Microsoft that was provided to me through an academic establishment. It's not a new concept.

 

The account on Office 365 lets you download the software, at minimum. If in the future you want it to do more then great but if not set up Office 365 and add your users then forget it ever exists.

 

You are creating a problem I think where there isn't one.

 

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth and all that.,. ;-)

[john]

problem is that we've been burned by this before, quite badly. Remember when MS started offering MS terminal services? - all of a sudden all of students could get 'free' access to MSOffice with a relatively cheap external connector license. Everyone was happy until they suddenly changed the licensing on Office. It impacted our organisation quite badly to the point that SLT moved us to LibreOffice and then Google apps. My worry here is that its a subscription based install, so whereas before we could ride out the problem using an older version of Office, this could end a bit more painfully and more abruptly.

 

The latter part, once they are removed from the licensing it will go into limp mode fairly quickly, we have O365 in parts of our office and its quite clear on the install that you need a valid license and it checks regularly (30 days I think comes to mind) to check you still have a license in the portal and no license = limp mode.

[Cache]

FAQ available which covers some of the points here: Student Advantage and Office 365 ProPlus FAQ - Microsoft Education in the Cloud - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

[nadeem]

One thing that James didn't mention, that I got from the webinar is that the 5 devices include Office Mobile for Android and iPhone

[jamesbmarshall]

For those interested in finding out more, and still have questions, we're holding a Twitter Q&A this Thursday at 1200 GMT: Microsoft UK Education Cloud Blog - Learn About Office 365 Education

 

Feel free to watch, or join in.

[teejay]

For those interested in finding out more, and still have questions, we're holding a Twitter Q&A this Thursday at 1200 GMT: Microsoft UK Education Cloud Blog - Learn About Office 365 Education

 

Feel free to watch, or join in.

 

Timing not great as a lot of schools are on half term this week, next week would be better.

[jamesbmarshall]

Timing not great as a lot of schools are on half term this week, next week would be better.

 

Good feedback, excellent point; hopefully people who really want to will still join us - finding a suitable time can be tough sometimes. Not everyone in every stage of education, or part of the country, is off at the same time, and that's just the external considerations.

 

This won't be the only opportunity to ask questions, and while we'll try and schedule these events a bit more conveniently in future, the Twitter accounts are there all the time, you can ask questions anytime!

[jamesbmarshall]

December's not far away!

 

I've put some blog posts together that might be useful for some people:

 

1. For existing Office 365 schools on how to get Student Advantage: How do I get Student Advantage in Office 365 Education? - UK Education Cloud Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

 

2. For students on how to access Office 365 ProPlus once the school has assigned it: How do I get Student Advantage in Office 365 Education? (Part 2) - UK Education Cloud Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

 

3. For schools who don't have Office 365, but want Student Advantage: How do I get Student Advantage in Office 365 Education? (Part Three) - UK Education Cloud Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

 

I hope they help!