Microsoft/DfE MoU Licensing Costs

[ITManLT]

Hi All,

 

Has anybody heard anything further on the Microsoft Licensing front?

The Memorandum of Understanding between the DfE and Microsoft to provide discounted MS Licenses for education ended on the 1st July.

We renewed our licensing on a 3 year deal with our reseller on the 26th June (signed the online agreement with Microsoft on this date) and yet we have no licenses online under this order..

When I asked our reseller about this they said "It appears that Microsoft are not processing any orders that were due to renew on the 1^st of July at the old pricing, they will only accept orders on the new pricing. We hoped that they would have signed a new pricing agreement with the DFE by now but we have heard nothing from Microsoft"

 

Just wondering if anybody else is in this situation at the minute or has heard anything on Microsoft Licensing.

 

L

[johnlevis]

Hi Taylor

 

I've got a lot of customers in this situation.

 

As I understand it, all new orders are being put on hold until an agreement is reached between Microsoft and DFE - this was meant to have happened in July (probably not helped by all the MS heads being at the Partner Conference).

 

Orders can be pushed through but you need to agree that if a discount is introduced, they will not be able to refund it retrospectively. This won't affect you if you are already in a 3 year agreement as your pricing will be locked.

 

Last I heard, it could be the end of August before a decision is made but best advice is to place the order. If a discount is negotiated I would imagine they will all need to be re-quoted.

 

John

[ultima170387]

We are in the same boat. Sat waiting for new quotes to come in once MS and DfE have reached an agreement. Currently we have no active license agreement because of this as ours expired on 30th June.

[Safa]

It looks like they are still trying to reach an agreement; I got off the phone to my supplier today and he was told possibly by the end of the month...

[johnlevis]

One of our customers had their licence order on hold due to this (order placed with disty but held). Microsoft have emailed them today saying that as the order wasn't placed, they are terminating the agreement. It points to having to go ahead at the July increased price, especially if you have Office 365 licences for staff/pupils which can stop working over the holidays. Be interesting to see what happens with pricing come September.

[mavhc]

Another reason to switch to Open Source

[Safa]

Another reason to switch to Open Source

 

 

100% agree!

 

I would love to move them all over to a flavour of Linux; they would all have a heart attack though...

[free780]

Not really preparing students for the real world.

[DJ-1701]

Not really preparing students for the real world.

 

I have to agree, most places are still running a Windows network. Though I do wonder how long it will be before that would become a iOS/Android network with mobile devices becoming more prevalent.

[free780]

Also arguably you can run a lot of server side apps using Linux. Not sure how well AD/DC/GP works with samba though. Exams software will only support Windows usually.

[mavhc]

Most computers run linux these days, plus everything is web based so the OS doesn't matter

[Boredguy]

Most computers run linux these days, plus everything is web based so the OS doesn't matter

You mean they *can* run linux.

 

As for everything being web based, yea maybe in a few more years.

[free780]

BTL SecureAssess

Pearson POP

Pearson Administrator

Impero

Final Cut Pro

Just a few that require particular OS' But yes if it was all web based it would make life easier.

[caffrey]

If it wasn't for a few certain things, we're really not far off just using chromeOS

[DGardiner]

If it wasn't for a few certain things, we're really not far off just using chromeOS

 

id love to do this where possible, most skills are transferable between platforms anyway these days... word processing is word processing and spreadsheets are spreadsheets until you're at the super edge cases and needing to get macros/programming involved they all look the same and do the same job

[mavhc]

Both GSheets and MS Excel can be macro programmed in Javascript, as can Mac OS automation, Impero will most likely move to a web teacher console/server, Senso has done that already. So you have exam software, which should just move online already, and video editing, on linux as well as the industry standard Lightworks and DaVinci Resolve you have Blender and Kdenlive, plus some simpler editors like OpenShot.