[windows software] Changes to Microsoft Education Licensing

Microsoft are making changes to education licensing which will come into effect on October 1st.

 

Not much information yet as suppliers are still being briefed. Initial info is:

 

· A change to FTE calculations based on 'Knowledge Workers'.

· The introduction of new cloud suites for education customers.

· A change to the eligible products Campus Agreements can be signed with.

· The free Student Use Benefits have been greatly enhanced.

· Pricing structures will be broadly comparable, with Levels A-D remaining in place.

 

I know this will affect EES agreements, not sure how much it will affect other agreements. I will aim to update this message when I get more info.

Any news on this? Only a month away and I am getting cryptic emails from suppliers with "Coming soon" and a brief list of changes that could mean anything!

Unfortunately it looks like there are quite a few things microsoft hasn't thought through so our suppliers are still trying to get clarification on quite a few things.

So far I have:

 

Knowledge workers - anyone who does work on behalf of the institution on an institution owned device (not tablet or smartphone). This includes staff, contractors and volunteers. We're seeking clarification on emeritus professors as part of being emeritus includes doing work for us.

 

New suites. the old desktop bundle no longer exists and is being replaced by Microsoft 365 suites (not to be confused with Office 365 which is part of the new suite).

 

Decrease as well as increase licence count. This is a good one. If you have a multi year agreement and your head count goes down after the first year you can decrease your licence count.

 

Licence step up. If you have a few people who need a higher level product, as long as you have a site licence for the lower level product you can step-up just what you need to the higher level.

 

 

I would suggest you try and get a meeting with your suppliers to go through your requirements in detail as these changes are causing a lot of confusion and trying to figure it out on your own would be very difficult.

An organisation on one of my email lists was seeing a 30% price increase under the new agreement, glad we signed ourselves onto a 3-year deal back in July.

Licence count going down was already provided under the last MoU so that's maybe Microsoft just giving more parity in it's licensing.

 

Not sure I like the sound of the rest of the changes, also glad we fixed for 3 years before the summer. This after Microsoft saying that there wouldn't be any major changes to OVS-ES until next July....

New news from Microsoft:

 

On EES if your renewal is due before the end of December Microsoft are allowing renewal under the old rules.

No definite decision on whether this will be extended into the start of next year (but it hasn't been ruled out yet).

 

If you renew under the old rules and later decide you want to switch to the new rules Microsoft will discuss making changes to an existing contract.

 

Don't know if this option will apply to non-EES renewals.

 

We are definitely going with this option!!!!

@Boredguy watched a Webinar on this the other day; apparently this isn't affecting Schools on the OVS-ES license that have less then 1000 users.

So the Desktop Pack will still remain?

Wait.

 

Didn't Microsoft set out a licensing road map to 2022 last year?

 

We made serious decisions based on that, running a 1yr(last year) 1yr (this year) 3yr(next year) strategy. If our costs go up in the middle of this because of this change (they usually do for us) we could have a hole in the budget likely bigger than what is projected for surplus...

Edited September 23, 2017 by psydii

I believe the new M365 suite will include everything which was in the desktop suite. I have asked for confirmation of this.

 

One change is that there will no longer be a choice between core CAL and enterprise CAL versions. You can only get enterprise now.

Microsoft are making changes to education licensing which will come into effect on October 1st.

 

Not much information yet as suppliers are still being briefed. Initial info is:

 

· A change to FTE calculations based on 'Knowledge Workers'.

· The introduction of new cloud suites for education customers.

· A change to the eligible products Campus Agreements can be signed with.

· The free Student Use Benefits have been greatly enhanced.

· Pricing structures will be broadly comparable, with Levels A-D remaining in place.

 

I know this will affect EES agreements, not sure how much it will affect other agreements. I will aim to update this message when I get more info.

 

Ths only effects sites on the full EES agreement and 1000 FTE or higher.

 

Schools on the OVS-ES agreements have no change at present to pricing.

 

If you are on EES there you can choose to have a single 12 month extension of your current agreement before transistioning to the new model.

ouch just had the bill for the second year of Desktop Education, almost £800 rise over last year and here was me thinking Microsoft where giving education establishments a reasonable deal. At 3 Grand I could buy 10 more laptops with licence stickers, would only need to worry about office then but at £60 per laptop per year even that's excessive (£3 Gs for 48 laptops and 1 server) Edited November 6, 2017 by charlie13561

So if we were to want to license today, what are we now looking to buy. Desktop pack or M365?

Will depend which agreement you're on:

 

For EES with over 1000 users we can still go with the old version up to December (which we have just done)

 

For OVS-ES it's still the old model (see answer from @Boredguy)

 

Not sure what the rules are for other agreements

What is the advantage of this over buying stickered laptops? My quote is over £3000, we have 60 very old desktops which all have Windows 7 Pro stickers on, and all of our laptops were bought on the high street so also came with Windows stickers.

 

The previous Network manager had an OVS contract which has now expired, and I'm struggling to justify repurchasing if we already covered by licenses that came with the machines.

OVS also includes all your Network CAL licences in addition to the OS Upgrade rights from a valid version up to the latest release from MS.

If you do not have any Client Access Licences (CAL's) via another means, then technically your not licenced to have the computers accessing a Windows File Server.

 

Not to mention the licences for other services that are part of the desktop pack.

What is the advantage of this over buying stickered laptops? My quote is over £3000, we have 60 very old desktops which all have Windows 7 Pro stickers on, and all of our laptops were bought on the high street so also came with Windows stickers.

 

The previous Network manager had an OVS contract which has now expired, and I'm struggling to justify repurchasing if we already covered by licenses that came with the machines.

 

Well, I believe there is a buyout clause if you no longer want to go ahead with the scheme. Something like needing to order a certain number of perpetual licenses based on your FTE count. Anyway the licensing does cover more than just the Windows license and your ability to upgrade Windows to the latest version (so you can work on Windows 10, as Windows 7 is End of Support January 14, 2020), it also allows you the latest Microsoft Office and Client Access Licensing to your Servers.

Thank you, I thought there must be a reason, but I needed to clarify that when I could see Windows stickers on all the PCs.

It's worth pointing out that you still need to buy machines with atleast a home licence installed also, it just provides you upgrade rights not rights to install on an unlicenced machine.