Looking For A Good MSP

[cheekycharly]

Hi all, anyone got some major love for a specific MSP? I was recommended softcat but I have reached out to them twice now and heard noting so I take it they aren't interested. Any suggestions are great.

 

 

I just need to upgrade our licensing from A1 to A3 soon and need a homie to supply the demands.

Cheers

[Jcx500]

Wemtech

[fiza]

We use XMA and StoneGroup

[TechMonkey]

What area of the country?

[cheekycharly]

Northwest of England

[Shadow_Walker]

Novus https://www.novus.co.uk/ couldn't fault them.

[George_ARO]

I can definitely recommend 'shopping around' for the licenses at the moment given the 9% upcoming price increase (possibly more if you were price-locked for a number of years) and your new supplier should be able to help minimize that.

[discoveranother]

Interesting question. We are in the same boat, so I will ask around. Our usual supplier, we are also having nothing but problems getting any form of response from them.

[timbo343]

Hi all, anyone got some major love for a specific MSP? I was recommended softcat but I have reached out to them twice now and heard noting so I take it they aren't interested. Any suggestions are great.

 

 

I just need to upgrade our licensing from A1 to A3 soon and need a homie to supply the demands.

Cheers

 

Phoenix Software based just outside of York, that's who we use our MS licensing for ar the moment amd have done for the past 9 years. Cannot fault them!

[MatthewL]

I've used Softcat and Phoenix over the years had no issue with either back in the day. Phoenix were based opposite where I used to work so would be my go to these days, only 45 minutes away and I prefer local if I can.

[psydii]

Bechtle have been pretty good for us over the last few years. Their licensing team are the best I have encountered.

[Arthur]

Phoenix Software based just outside of York, that's who we use our MS licensing for at the moment amd have done for the past 9 years.

Phoenix Software are great for Microsoft licensing. My school has used them for a really long time too.

 

I just need to upgrade our licensing from A1 to A3 soon and need a homie to supply the demands.

Since you are looking at the A3 subscription you may want to consider a Microsoft EES Chest agreement. Phoenix are one of the approved resellers (along with Pugh, Softcat, XMA and several others).

 

Although it means paying a small upfront fee to Jisc, it may still works out cheaper overall. The other benefit is that you can add 'EES M365 Apps For Enterprise For Devices' (P/N: RQL-00001) as a no cost option and enable device-based activation for the Office desktop apps.

 

www.chest.ac.uk/agreements/microsoft-ees-education-qualified-user

 

The Chest Microsoft EES EQU Agreement provides the following benefits over and above a standard Microsoft EES EQU Agreement:

 

• Minimum staff EQU requirement reduced from 1,000 EQU to 100 EQU
  
• English law rather than Irish
  
• Level B pricing for all sites, which is normally available to institutions with more than 3,000 EQU (around a 7% saving on core products)
  

Additionally, sites committing for three years with Microsoft can access the following benefits too:

 

• Additional 7.5% discount for M365 A3 in year one only of your agreement, normally only available to sites with more than 10,000 EQU (please note as a quid pro quo, your first year’s student use benefit will be reduced from the usual 40:1 to 24:1)
  
• Transitional relief for sites moving from an FTE EES to an EQU EES
  
• For sites that chose 100% M365 A5 in year one of your enrolment, an additional 14% discount will apply, 8% in year two and 5% in year three (please note as a quid pro quo, your first year’s student use benefit will be reduced from the usual 40:1 to 32:1)
  

For institutions that enrol with Microsoft for one year and choose 100% M365 A5 coverage, there will be an additional 5% discount from normal Level B pricing.

 

Chest has contracted with the resellers for this agreement under the National Framework for Software Resellers to allow all the Community to enjoy the benefits of aggregated purchasing. The resellers under the agreement and details of their pricing and value added services can be found on the Resellers tab.

 

Your responsibilities under this agreement are otherwise unchanged from signing an agreement directly with Microsoft. You are not jointly responsible for the actions of any other participant site.

 

The Chest Fee depends on your staff EQU number when you join the agreement:

 

Sites with more than 300 EQU:

 

• Participation Fee (single payment) for one year of participation: £399
  
• Participation Fee (single payment) for three years participation: £912
  

Sites with 300 or less EQU:

 

• Participation Fee (single payment) for one year of participation: £268
  
• Participation Fee (single payment) for three years participation: £612
  

Edited March 24, 2023 by Arthur

[cheekycharly]

I'm thinking I wont need A3 as our school laptops get different users every lesson and reading A3 you can only install office 5times so its not really built for shared devices. We have Office on LTSC and that is installed on the base laptop so I figure all we need is Enterprise Mobility + Security E3 to give us the extra Azure and Intune features and we should be fine. Kids then should be able to logon to a customized desktop and still access the locally installed applications.

[Arthur]

I'm thinking I won't need A3 as our school laptops get different users every lesson and reading A3 you can only install office 5 times so it's not really built for shared devices.

With that free license I mentioned above (and the EES agreement) it's possible to use device-based activation for the M365 Office desktop apps to avoid that issue.

 

The link below explains how it works and the requirements.

 

Device-based licensing for Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise

 

Commercial customers can use Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise (device) to assign a Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise license to a Windows client device instead of to a user. Education customers can do the same thing by using the Microsoft 365 Apps for Education (device) license. This device-based license is designed to simplify management of Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise on devices shared by many users. Anyone that signs in and uses that device can use Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise to create and edit documents.

 

It's definitely worth having a chat with one of the Microsoft resellers mentioned in this thread to go over the various options since it can get very complicated/messy. For a good example, see this thread.

 

Office LTSC is still a good option, but if you later change your Windows licensing you may lose the ability to activate Office via KMS/AD or use the 'home' editions of Windows as a base license for Pro or Education.

[MartinT]

Phoenix are very good. We've used them for years.

[jertsy]

Novus https://www.novus.co.uk/ couldn't fault them.

 

+1 for Novus from me, fantastic group of guys.

[CTIDTech]

Another one to consider are LEAD IT Services in Derby (they were part of LEAD MAT) and are great!