schools agreement - advice

[Soulfish]

I dont understand whats being said here.

 

Schools agreements come in different forms. As far as i'm aware there are 3. We have Schools 3 here, which covers Windows OS, Microsoft Office and the core cals.

 

There's just one type of Schools agreement. The difference comes from how long you license for: 1 or 3 years. I'm not 100% clear on what the difference is (having just entered into a schools agreement) but I believe signing up for the longer periods means your license costs stay pretty much the same over those 3 years, whereas single year agreements are subject to cost increases each renewal.

 

What you've licensed for under you schools agreement is the Microsoft Desktop Pack which includes Windows, Office + the Core CAL pack cheaper then licensing them individually.

 

What _Ric was alluding to is the fact that Windows 7 Enterprise is only available to Software Assurance customers. If you purchase your licenses through a standard select agreement you only get the rights to run Windows 7 Business. In order to get access to Enterprise you then need to take out a SA agreement. Which ever way you license if you want access to Enterprise you will have an ongoing cost. One of many reasons we decided to opt for a schools agreement. The fact that we're now going to have a pretty static yearly licensing cost was another reason

[bjgrant]

i am just looking at licences at present and am wondering if the MS Schools Agreement would be worth our while?

 

we have 380 (will be 468 soon) curriculum stations and 13 admin, currently running office 2003 (dont know at present how many are 2007 compatible looking into this at the moment)

 

we use office, have server 2003, exchange, and running cc3 but looking to cc4 soon.

 

i am also looking to upgrade to office 2007 or 2010 soon, my understanding of MSSA is that in will make my life easier regarding licences of ms gubbins anyway.

 

with cc4 i will be looking at Windows 7 on new stations when supported.

what are peoples experences?

 

what are the problems moving from how we are (just purchasing as and when) to moving to the schools agreement

 

does being an RM school complicate this?

 

Just a thought - we have been using MSSA for many years (4500 users) and are now moving away from that model. Open Office supplants MS Office nicely for free and I have yet to see any real motivation for moving from XP Pro OS to Windows 7. Mail client is changing to Thunderbird from Outlook and Scribus is nice FOSS substitute for MS Publisher if required.

[Ric_]

Just a thought - we have been using MSSA for many years (4500 users) and are now moving away from that model. Open Office supplants MS Office nicely for free and I have yet to see any real motivation for moving from XP Pro OS to Windows 7. Mail client is changing to Thunderbird from Outlook and Scribus is nice FOSS substitute for MS Publisher if required.

 

It would be brilliant to do that but for many of us we still need some MS products...

 

• Our MIS (SIMS.net) requires Office for reporting purposes
  
• We run primarily Windows servers (hence CALs are needed)
  
• We are a heavy user of Terminal Services (more CALs)
  

 

Windows 7 Enterprise has some nice features that will help fulfill some security requirements too...

 

• BitLocker managed through AD
  
• BitLocker2Go (to enforce encryption of USB drives - also managed through AD)
  
• Supposedly easily deployment in conjunction with SCCM and MSDT
  

[cookie_monster]

Just a thought - we have been using MSSA for many years (4500 users) and are now moving away from that model. Open Office supplants MS Office nicely for free and I have yet to see any real motivation for moving from XP Pro OS to Windows 7. Mail client is changing to Thunderbird from Outlook and Scribus is nice FOSS substitute for MS Publisher if required.

 

 

 

We would like to go Open Office here but SIMS is a big stumbling block. I am thinking about using Scribus to replace Publisher though.

 

I'd like to know more about Home Access for £9.99 can anyone point me to some info?

 

Cheers.

[john]

We would like to go Open Office here but SIMS is a big stumbling block. I am thinking about using Scribus to replace Publisher though.

 

I'd like to know more about Home Access for £9.99 can anyone point me to some info?

 

Cheers.

What more do you want Cookie? We use it, all I do is go to the MSVLS site and enable it and say I agree to pass the secret code onto only my staff etc etc and they email me it and then I put it on our Staff Newsletter and gave them the web link and away they went. As easy as that and I do believe a good few of our staff have taken advantage of it as its Office 2007 Enterprise they get for £9.99 which is a steal when PC World will charge over £400 for it!

[cookie_monster]

What more do you want Cookie? We use it, all I do is go to the MSVLS site and enable it and say I agree to pass the secret code onto only my staff etc etc and they email me it and then I put it on our Staff Newsletter and gave them the web link and away they went. As easy as that and I do believe a good few of our staff have taken advantage of it as its Office 2007 Enterprise they get for £9.99 which is a steal when PC World will charge over £400 for it!

 

 

 

I was looking into the work from home licence for Office but i'm sure it was a different price. Is home access available to students for £9.99 as well? This sounds like a great way to get around the Office\Terminal Server licensing problem.

[john]

I think you maybe thinking a different thing, what I am on about is a licence for the member of staffs own personal PC at home not a "TS Home use Licence" (That's probably not its name hence the "") this gives them a personal copy for life for use on a PC at home that is there own not using a TS to access Office outside of work. Its strictly for Staff use only.

[Ric_]

I was looking into the work from home licence for Office but i'm sure it was a different price. Is home access available to students for £9.99 as well? This sounds like a great way to get around the Office\Terminal Server licensing problem.

 

For students you need to add the 'student option' onto the agreement and the price of this varies depending upon the products licensed and the number of students licensed. Indeed it is a way around the Office/TS 'problem'. The students also get to keep the latest version of office when they 'graduate'.

[cookie_monster]

I think you maybe thinking a different thing, what I am on about is a licence for the member of staffs own personal PC at home not a "TS Home use Licence" (That's probably not its name hence the "") this gives them a personal copy for life for use on a PC at home that is there own not using a TS to access Office outside of work. Its strictly for Staff use only.

 

 

No I am thinking about Office licencing it's licenced per device so when someone logs on to TS from home the PC needs the same licence as the Office version on the TS. This means that all staff and students would need to be running Office Pro on their home machines. The Office home licence would help get around this nicely.

 

I'll look into the student licence Ric cheers.

[bjgrant]

I understand - felt the same but since have researched and found it will save many dollars to buy out our CALs and a few MS Office licenses that might be critical (MS Access still required in some places as it is not fully supplanted by Open Office Base as yet.) I am pretty sure your MIS could report via Open Office though. Good luck either way. The hard part for me is getting the users to embrace the changes without a revolt and lynching of the IT director.

 

bg

 

 

It would be brilliant to do that but for many of us we still need some MS products...

 

• Our MIS (SIMS.net) requires Office for reporting purposes
  
• We run primarily Windows servers (hence CALs are needed)
  
• We are a heavy user of Terminal Services (more CALs)
  

 

Windows 7 Enterprise has some nice features that will help fulfill some security requirements too...

 

• BitLocker managed through AD
  
• BitLocker2Go (to enforce encryption of USB drives - also managed through AD)
  
• Supposedly easily deployment in conjunction with SCCM and MSDT
  

[cookie_monster]

I understand - felt the same but since have researched and found it will save many dollars to buy out our CALs and a few MS Office licenses that might be critical (MS Access still required in some places as it is not fully supplanted by Open Office Base as yet.) I am pretty sure your MIS could report via Open Office though. Good luck either way. The hard part for me is getting the users to embrace the changes without a revolt and lynching of the IT director.

 

bg

 

 

 

There's been a few threads on here about this particular MIS software requiring MS Office and requests for OO support have fallen on deaf ears.

[Arthur]

Windows 7 Enterprise has some nice features that will help fulfill some security requirements too...

 

• BitLocker managed through AD
  
• BitLocker2Go (to enforce encryption of USB drives - also managed through AD)
  
• Supposedly easily deployment in conjunction with SCCM and MSDT
  

Has anyone who doesn't have a Schools Agreement bought Windows 7 Ultimate for new computers? We've had to do this for our new staff laptops so we can use BitLocker and BitLocker2Go. A SA was just too expensive for us.

[Ric_]

Has anyone who doesn't have a Schools Agreement bought Windows 7 Ultimate for new computers? We've had to do this for our new staff laptops so we can use BitLocker and BitLocker2Go. A SA was just too expensive for us.

 

The other option to buying machines with 7 Ultimate OEM licenses is to buy under SELECT+ which has Software Assurance for 2 yeas IIRC. You need to keep the Software Assurance topped up though or it drops back to being a Professional (?) license.

[KK20]

I am thinking about an SA but cannot make the numbers add up. We run 'select' at the moment. SQL, 4 servers (currently 2003 but moving to 2008), Exchange (2003 but 2007 once the server is x64 2008), ISA 2006 approx 220 desktops (all XP) with CALS for above, office 2003 pro (moving to 2010 as and when) with individually purchased copies of project for a handful of PCs.

 

Now, as I see it it isnt beneficial for me to switch to SA unless I plan on moving all my XP machines to windows 7. I dont have SCCM so I can see this being a major PITA unless I see a major reason for doing so. I dont think I have the machine numbers to justify SCCM either which is a shame as I imagine it would make things easier for me.

 

Looking at other peoples prices on here I would cost circa £6k whereas I only pay 5k at the moment. I do have the option of buyout which I may get a price on this year. 1k to rollout 220x windows 7 is a good idea but do I really want to go through that hassle. Natural desktop replacements will now be specified as windows 7 so im not convinced.

 

Oh decisions decisions.

Edited January 15, 2010 by KK20

[Dave84]

Ive been looking into School agreement too to see the costs of licensing our 166 PCs in School. I didnt realise you could just license Windows and/or Office (and exclude the CALs) under the School agreement but I have been told you can, which gives me more options to think about. For the SA desktop we have just been quoted £25.14 per machine which comes to just over £4k.

Still undecided of what to do, but got until April time to decide anyway.