Microsoft to move out of the education market?

[localzuk]

It really does depend on your circumstances I think, for those who haven't gone virtual yet and have a lot of physical servers there could be reduced running costs, not a huge saving by any means, but a potential saving.

 

Would that not mean converting their on-premises setup to a virtualised setup would save them more?

[JRowley]

Would that not mean converting their on-premises setup to a virtualised setup would save them more?

 

Well, that really depends doesn't it, if they convert half their physical servers to cloud and the other half to virtual then you could reduce the spec needed of the virtual hosts relative to virtualising the lot.

 

It's not likely to be a huge difference, but would be a saving of some sort I would have thought.

[sonofsanta]

I felt like the licensing questions about the OVS-ES discount were answered fully, and I understand that at last. Bit annoyed because my renewal date is the 31st July, but so it goes. At least I know where I stand on that.

 

But I confess I am having trouble envisaging precisely what a hybrid network would look like and why we should be moving to it. The only core service that makes sense to move to the cloud is Exchange, which I've already done...

[nathan]

Did they imply that Azure pricing would be reduced for education?

[localzuk]

Did they imply that Azure pricing would be reduced for education?

 

They indicated that there were some discounts for some things, yes, but also that a hybrid licensing scheme will exist as of May 1st. This will mean you don't have to pay for extra Windows server licenses if you've got them under OVS-ES already (at the moment if you pay for a VM on Azure, you're also paying for the Windows license). So there's some savings there too.

[gshaw]

Was in a meeting so couldn't get on this in the end, so was this MS basically confirming they want to kill off on-prem servers by making them unviable financially? @sonofsanta is the July bit you mentioned regarding getting renewals in early to maintain current discount level?

[mavhc]

So we should still be switching to linux then? Can use free office365 and google web apps, libreoffice etc

 

Plug: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/nix/165630-linux-school-help-wanted.html

[nathan]

So we should still be switching to linux then? Can use free office365 and google web apps, libreoffice etc

 

Plug: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/nix/165630-linux-school-help-wanted.html

 

You use what suits your school, there will be some that suit Linux, some that suit Windows.

[sonofsanta]

Was in a meeting so couldn't get on this in the end, so was this MS basically confirming they want to kill off on-prem servers by making them unviable financially? @sonofsanta is the July bit you mentioned regarding getting renewals in early to maintain current discount level?

 

If you're a renewal customer, your discount level is locked at its current price until July 1 2018. The slow reduction in the discount that caused so much confusion is only for new OVS-ES customers.

 

The plan is to keep renewing in 1 year chunks until you get to a renewal on 1 July 2017 or after, and at that point renew for 3 years, to keep the discount for as long as possible--ideally up until June 30 2021.

 

After July 1 2018, prices will have a one-time rise of 19%.

 

My annoyance is that my renewal date is July 31, so the best I can do is renew for three years on July 31 2017 and keep my discount until July 2020, 11 months less than the optimum.

[Joanne]

Thing is for me, 19% is an extra maybe £250. So my total will be around £1500 a year. Still (I think) cheaper than faffing with Azure and its monthly costings.

[localzuk]

Thing is for me, 19% is an extra maybe £250. So my total will be around £1500 a year. Still (I think) cheaper than faffing with Azure and its monthly costings.

 

Across our trust, it works out around an extra £4k a year... So quite a chunk of cash!

 

I'm now kicking off a more fundamental study into how exactly we use IT, and how we will want to be using it in 2 years time. Might mean changing how we do things entirely, but will mean a big change for staff (which won't go down well).

Edited April 27, 2016 by localzuk

[zag]

Microsoft are clearly making a big move to the cloud.

 

I'm very interested in azure active directory but yet to hear of anyone actually using it to replace their onsite setups.

 

Office 365 is a no brainer for any school using email, and maybe sharepoint and SQL server. After that, it becomes a little more complicated!

[SHimmer45]

looking forward to the "cast" being ready for download

[gshaw]

Microsoft are clearly making a big move to the cloud.

 

I'm very interested in azure active directory but yet to hear of anyone actually using it to replace their onsite setups.

 

Office 365 is a no brainer for any school using email, and maybe sharepoint and SQL server. After that, it becomes a little more complicated!

 

Azure AD Premium still insists on trying to rip us off with per user pricing rather than FTE as per the rest of EES. If that's the future then MS won't be featuring much in it.

[Areku]

I did some quick sums and looks like 1500 a year increase for us, not worried too much as i know there are some "cloud" services we are already paying for that we don't use effectively, so they will be killed to compensate for the MS increase..

[nathan]

Azure AD Premium still insists on trying to rip us off with per user pricing rather than FTE as per the rest of EES. If that's the future then MS won't be featuring much in it.

 

For hosted ADDS it's not really per user pricing, its a per object pricing.

 

Less than 5000 objects - £22.73/mo

5,001 to 25,000 - £90.90/mo

25,001 to 100,000 - £181.80/mo

 

EDIT: Just realised you mentioned AD Premium

Edited April 27, 2016 by nathan

[smithson83]

Our prices for this year have gone up already (our 3y agreement comes to an end in Aug), as our supplier has quoted on level E pricing, not Level F (think I read somewhere the got rid of the Level F tier). Our supplier is saying we need to sign up to a 3Yr agreement so we don't face the year on year increases until 2018.

 

I was under the impression we would get the same pricing with 1year rolling agreements with it being a renewal and not a new agreement.

[localzuk]

Our prices for this year have gone up already (our 3y agreement comes to an end in Aug), as our supplier has quoted on level E pricing, not Level F (think I read somewhere the got rid of the Level F tier). Our supplier is saying we need to sign up to a 3Yr agreement so we don't face the year on year increases until 2018.

 

I was under the impression we would get the same pricing with 1year rolling agreements with it being a renewal and not a new agreement.

 

I think they are referring to the normal yearly price increases rather than the overall "big increases". MS pricing goes up yearly normally, by a small amount. I don't expect MS would change this practice and hold the pricing level until 2018.

 

So, a 3 year agreement gives you a guaranteed price, but a 1 year gives you the discounted pricing still, but plus the normal yearly increase.

[smithson83]

I think they are referring to the normal yearly price increases...

 

Our prices went up a little each year even within the 3yr agreement...

[gh5000]

Our prices for this year have gone up already (our 3y agreement comes to an end in Aug), as our supplier has quoted on level E pricing, not Level F (think I read somewhere the got rid of the Level F tier). Our supplier is saying we need to sign up to a 3Yr agreement so we don't face the year on year increases until 2018.

 

I was under the impression we would get the same pricing with 1year rolling agreements with it being a renewal and not a new agreement.

 

I think the Level F pricing still exists, but it has always been described as for institutions with device OR user (can't remember which) counts of over 1000. We've always been able to get these, and the lower pricing that comes with it, until this year when they seem to actually be enforcing this over 1000 rule and giving Level E pricing.

[Joanne]

Our prices went up a little each year even within the 3yr agreement...

 

Resellers.

 

When I first got our EES agreement I got the 3 prices and they varied wildly.

[localzuk]

Our prices went up a little each year even within the 3yr agreement...

 

I complained when a reseller tried this with us, they apologised and gave us the correct pricing!

[nicholab]

I think the main thing is that any refresh should be software and x86 based. Also power BI could be good for Big Data into schools information. Edited April 27, 2016 by nicholab

[localzuk]

I think schools would need some training to make much use of PowerBI, even down to the usefulness of using data on such a level.

 

It'd also require the ability for access to that data in the first place (is there an easy tool to get data from SIMS.Net into PowerBI, for example?).

[kennysarmy]

Was in a meeting so couldn't get on this in the end, so was this MS basically confirming they want to kill off on-prem servers by making them unviable financially? @sonofsanta is the July bit you mentioned regarding getting renewals in early to maintain current discount level?

 

As a % of your schools turnover what do you think the price "hike" works out at?

 

For us it works out around 0.017%

 

I'm not going to lose any sleep over it....