Author Archives: licensingschool

MVLC becomes MBC

When the MPSA was launched, a new portal replaced VLSC – the Microsoft Volume Licensing Center, or MVLC. This portal will be undergoing an upgrade very soon and will be known as the Microsoft Business Center. Don’t worry – it’s not a new portal so much as a layer over the existing portal surfacing summary information more easily.

If you’re in the US, Canada or Japan you’re probably already using this portal, and the rest of the world will soon have access.

If you want to get an overview of the new look and feel then this video is worth a look: http://bit.ly/1WqXK2w.

Microsoft retires the Volume Licensing and SAM Competencies

Well, this has given us all something to talk about here at Licensing Towers!

Microsoft have announced a series of changes to their partner program and, as part of this, they are retiring a number of competencies – including those for Volume Licensing and Software Asset Management (SAM).

If you’re a current partner, wondering what this means for you and your business, Microsoft have produced an FAQ document which has some very relevant questions and can be downloaded here (http://bit.ly/1NnZi67).

Although the competencies are being retired, there are two things that Microsoft make clear:

1)      Continued Volume Licensing certification will still be a requirement for Distributor and LSP partners

2)      SAM is still very much a focus for Microsoft and they will continue to work with partners on this

A question you will most likely hear around the business over the next few days will be:

“Are the competencies still worthwhile?”

and here at Licensing School, we feel there is still definite value to renewing/attaining these competencies, for a number of reasons.

Many customers understand the effort that goes into attaining a Microsoft competency and having MCP accredited staff members will still show them your dedication, focus and expertise. Additionally, the last date a partner can be active in one of these competencies is 30 January, 2018 so there are still almost two years until they are removed from the Partner Membership Center.

There are some deadlines to be aware of:

  • Current VL and SAM partners are able to renew these competencies by their next anniversary or 30 October, 2016 whichever comes first.
  • If you are currently working towards attaining one or both of these competencies, you need to sign up by 30 July, 2016.

If you’re now slightly concerned about how you, your team and/or your colleagues can learn the material and pass the exams in the next in the next couple of months – don’t worry, our range of exam prep materials will give you the best possible chance of attaining these certifications in the timeframe Microsoft have set!

For Volume Licensing, we have a range of resources and courses including our popular exam preparation guide “Lessons in Licensing – Microsoft 74-678: Exam Preparation Guide”, which can be found here (http://bit.ly/1NnZp1x).

For SAM, we are running a Licensing School Online 70-673 Exam Prep Course on 4 May, 2016. Register here http://bit.ly/1RzX7S9T using voucher code 70-673-35B and get the promo price of £65 + VAT.

To read more, and to see other impacted competencies, head over to the Microsoft MPN Evolution page here (http://bit.ly/1S6fLy1).

Office 365 Concurrent Licensing

April Fools post 2016 🙂

Microsoft announce a new type of licence which will finally allow concurrent licensing on Office 365 E1, E3, or E5.

The Fixed Unnamed User Licence (FUUL) is available for purchase in fixed amounts of 50 users but then allows ANY 50 users to use the relevant service under the licence. Thus if you’ve got 274 users who need to use the service at the same time then you would need to acquire 6 FUULs.

There are some restrictions on using the service but since the pricing equates to about 1/4 the price of a regular Office 365 USL it could be worth a look for certain types of businesses.

It’s available for a limited period from April 1st and you can read the full announcement and see the list of available features here: http://LS2016AprilFool.

Licensing SQL Server on Linux

Microsoft announced in early March that SQL Server is to be available on Linux (http://bit.ly/1Y1LSlS) but how will it be licensed?

The answer’s easier than you might expect – if you buy a SQL Server licence then you’ll be able to use SQL Server on Windows Server or Linux.

Find this and some other useful SQL 2016 questions here: http://bit.ly/1RLZG2j.

SharePoint and Project Server 2016

Microsoft announce RTM of SharePoint Server 2016 and Project Server 2016, and expect availability in VLSC in early May.

Interestingly, Project Server will now be part of the SharePoint Server installation – but will still require its own licence of course.

Read the announcement here (http://bit.ly/1USnfKe) and find a link to the Project Server 2016 release notes too.

Dynamics AX

Dynamics AX Public Cloud is available – in normal English that’s Dynamics AX built on and for Microsoft Azure as a cloud ERP service. This site (http://bit.ly/1Rfz2fL) gives you an overview of the licensing options – it’s USLs (as you’d expect) and DSLs (as you might not) and for the USLs there are different levels available dependent on what the user needs to do.

For those who love an overview there’s a useful Quick Reference Guide available on this site, and for those made of sterner stuff there’s a full 28-page Licensing, Pricing and Support Guide.

March 2016 MPSA Licensing Manual

The major changes to this very useful document are the inclusion of the alternative ordering terms for both licences with Software Assurance and Online Services. How do these work? I’ve explained them below, but you can find the information on page 6 of the Manual if you’re interested in the official wording.

First of all, Software Assurance. We’re used to SA purchases aligning to the third Purchasing Account Anniversary and this has the benefit that all of your SA purchases in a single year will be due for renewal at the same time – which is nice and easy to manage of course. The alternative option now is to purchase a full 36 months of SA – which over time could potentially mean that you’ve got SA renewal payments to make every month. However, it’s an option if customers want it, and for both alternatives they can pay in full upfront, or upfront annually on the Purchasing Account Anniversary or the Order Anniversary.

And then there’s Online Services. In the beginning, these subscriptions were always aligned to the first Purchasing Account Anniversary and then renewals were for a full 12 months. Now this remains one option but you can also purchase a full 12 months at any time. If you buy more subscriptions for the same service within a Purchasing Account then it will align to the original order of the service.

But that’s not all because last year some of the Online Services were made available to be purchased for two or three years and these were always aligned to the second or third Purchasing Account Anniversaries. Again, this is still an option but you can also choose to purchase full 24 or 36 month subscriptions if that’s better for you. And the payment options? Well, it’s the same as the SA options – you can pay for the whole period upfront, or upfront annually on the Purchasing Account Anniversary or the Order Anniversary.

And that’s still not all! The other change to Online Services, which is documented in the Manual, is the introduction of short-term subscriptions. This is where you can buy anything from 1 to 11 months of a service with no alignment to a Purchasing Account Anniversary. With this option, subsequent orders of the same service DON’T have to align to the first order.

The other changes that the Manual contains are small in comparison: some customers will now be using the Microsoft Business Center (MBC) as their management portal rather than the Microsoft Volume Licensing Center (MVLC) and you’ll see that change on page 4. There are notes throughout that certain SA benefits (Planning Services, Training Vouchers, Problem Resolution Support, and Enhanced Hotfix Support) are not available for Academic Purchasing Accounts, and the final change is that the Office Multi-Language Pack is removed as an SA benefit since the rights to it are now included with the licence.

You can find this Manual in the Program Licensing Guides section in our Microsoft Licensing Guides emporium here: http://bit.ly/MSlicensingguides.

Adxstudio, from Microsoft, Licensing Guide

Microsoft acquired Adxstudio towards the end of 2015 since the Adxstudio Portals are built natively on Dynamics CRM and make it easy for customers to extend CRM to the web (original announcement: http://bit.ly/1LZLxtC).

There’s now an Adxstudio, from Microsoft, Licensing Guide which shows the options both on-premises and hosted CRM customers have for licensing Adxstudio Portals. The bottom line – it’s not yet available through Microsoft Volume Licensing agreements.

For the full story, find the guide in our Dynamics Licensing Guides section: http://bit.ly/MSlicensingguides.