Microsoft announces Intune for Education

[Arthur]

The Intune Edu licenses are the same price as Chrome OS management licenses.

 

Source: Microsoft

 

Intune for Education Helps Schools Easily Set-up and Manage Classroom Devices

In today’s classrooms, over 90 percent of schools use shared devices, with unique demands to set-up and manage these devices. And educators face more demands than ever before, with nearly 50 percent of teachers serving as their own tech support in their classrooms.

 

Specially designed for schools who want to put devices in classrooms and not touch them again for the rest of the school year, Intune for Education makes it easy for either IT admins, or teachers playing the role of IT in the classroom, to get up-and-running in minutes on Windows 10 devices and easily manage shared devices.

 

Simple Windows 10 Management: The express setup feature in Intune for Education makes it easy to set up default policies for all the devices and users in a class, school or district in a matter of minutes. Schools can customize over 150 granular settings, assign them to a student and apply them to hardware, apps, browsers, the start menu, Windows Defender and more. These settings follow the user to any device when they sign in.

 

To manage just a few devices, admins or teachers can automatically enroll in Intune for Education by logging in with an Office 365 Education email account. When there are many devices to set up, they can use the Set up School PCs app to set up any number of Windows 10 devices. The first time a teacher or student logs in to the new device, it is customized for their unique needs.

 

Easy application deployment: Intune for Education makes it easy to assign and deploy any combination of web apps or education apps from the Windows Store for Business. Once apps are customized, they are available to users at their next login and follow them to any device, so students and teachers always see the apps they are supposed to see, and no apps they shouldn’t.

 

Integrated with Microsoft education software and services: Intune for Education and Windows 10 are engineered to integrate easily with other Microsoft cloud services including Office 365 Education. By integrating with School Data Sync, Intune for Education automatically creates groups based on school roster data, so apps and settings can be applied to students, teachers, devices, specific schools, or specific classes or sections with no additional work required. Any changes to the roster will be reflected automatically in the group. For example, if a student is added to a photography class in the school roster, they will automatically be added to the group in Intune for Education and get the relevant apps. Intune for Education is perfectly suited for schools of any size that want a cloud-based solution to manage their Windows 10 devices. Because Intune for Education is based on Microsoft Intune, larger school districts or schools with large, full-time IT departments can take advantage of cross-platform support to manage iOS and Android devices and integration with System Center Configuration Manager, if they choose. Intune for Education will be available in preview in the coming weeks and broadly available this spring for $30 per device, and via volume licensing.

 

[psydii]

Hmm.

 

SCCM + EMS(for staff,) + Office365ProPlus (Staff) + Student advantage (gets office365proplus and intune for students) + Salamander get the same functionality at lower cost, oh and includes the EMS for staff and Office365 apps on devices.

 

This is great if you are launching from green field, but no so compelling if you have a good on prem set up already. The pricing needs to be looked at for those who have large on prem installations they are trying ot move to the cloud. Feature for feature we should not have to double pay. On Prem/ SA licence should grant the cloud equivalent for free, eventually we'd be running 100% in the cloud and then we could switch to cloud licences. The transition though is a tough sell to those who manage budgets.

[Arthur]

On Prem/SA licence should grant the cloud equivalent for free, eventually we'd be running 100% in the cloud and then we could switch to cloud licences. The transition though is a tough sell to those who manage budgets.

Definitely agree with that. InTune for Education should be included for free with EES!

[free780]

OK until you need to use 3rd party software that doesn't support one drive for business. I can't see SCCM being EOL anytime soon.

[psydii]

Worth a read: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/enterprisemobility/2017/01/24/perspectives-on-the-new-intune-console/

[gshaw]

MS need to sort the EMS licensing out first and bring it in line with the other EES products licensed via FTE count, not per user.