Tag Archives: Office 365

The Online Services Use Rights (OLSUR) – what sort of questions can it answer for you?

The Online Services Use Rights document has been around a while but it’s this month that it’s really come of age with the bulk of the use rights for the Online Services products being moved exclusively to it from the PUR. So, given that you probably don’t want to read this tome from start to finish, when’s it going to be handy for you in your licensing life? Here are ten questions that I think it’ll answer for you:

1. Can Online Services be used for an evaluation period?
No. Licences must be acquired to use Online Services for evaluation purposes – with the exception of Forefront Online Protection for Exchange. (Pages 8/18)

2. Does the 90 day rule apply to re-assigning USLs and DSLs?
Yes, with the usual exceptions of covering a user’s absence or the unavailability of a device that is out of service. (Page 9)

3. Does an Office 365 ProPlus USL allow use in an RDS scenario?
Yes. One of a user’s five activations may be used on a network server with the Remote Desktop Services role enabled. (Page 14)

4. How many smartphone devices can a user with an Office 365 ProPlus or E3/E4 USL use Office Mobile on?
Up to five. (Page 13)

5. Does an Office 365 ProPlus USL include Commercial Use Rights for Office Home and Student 2013 RT?
Yes. (Page 14)

6. Can a user licensed with a Project Pro or Visio Pro for Office 365 USL use the software on a device that has been activated by another user under a different USL?
Yes. (Page 14)

7. Project Online requires the use of SharePoint Online Plan 2 – does this need to be acquired separately?
No. SharePoint Online Plan 2 is commissioned as part of the Project Online service and, as you’d expect, may only be used to support Project Online. (Page 23)

8. Do users licensed with Lync Online Plan 1 USLs need further licences to attend a web conference?
No. (Page 19)

9. If a Windows Intune with Windows Desktop Operating System licence has been bought out, may it be transferred to another device?
No. (Page 9)

10. Can the Windows Intune with Windows Desktop Operating System licence be used in a Windows To Go deployment?
Yes. (Page 32)

Overview of the Changes to the January 2014 Volume Licensing Product List

If you look at the official changes in the January 2014 Product List you’d think there wasn’t much new this month, but read on for some interesting additions that go unadvertised…

Microsoft Products and Services Agreement

  • Let’s start with the Microsoft Products and Services Agreement. There’s been a lot of speculation about Microsoft’s Next Generation Volume Licensing initiative and this month the MPSA edges its way cautiously into the Product List. There’s not a lot, granted, but on pages 49/50 there’s advice to refer to Select Plus to find out what products you can buy under the MPSA, as well as confirmation that Office 365, CRM Online, Windows Intune and Yammer can all be purchased under the MPSA and are worth 1 point each. There’s also reference to an MPSA Licensing Manual which is worth a read: bit.ly/1a2TH1r

Office 365 Add-on USLs acquire access rights to Windows Server 2012

  • This is an interesting one; page 107 tells us that a licensed user of an Add-on User SL has access rights equivalent to the base Windows Server 2012 CAL, and may access standard functionality of Windows Server 2012 from any non-Qualified device. It’s a nice added touch of flexibility for anyone using the Add-ons with device-licensed CAL Suites

Office 365 through Open

  • We’ve talked a lot about more and more Office 365 plans becoming available through Open and the dizzy heights are reached with a new section in the Product List on page 59. There’s confirmation that Office 365 is sold through Open, Open Value and Open Value Subscription programs as a one year upfront payment method, as well as the fact that the subscription period starts at the time of the product key activation and not the time of order
  • There’s also a new section on page 46 on the Open Value Offer. If you’re not familiar with this, customers who have an active Open Value/OVS agreement with an organisation-wide commitment for Office Professional Plus and/or a CAL Suite qualify for a reduced price on certain Office 365 SKUs

There are some names changes:

  • The longest named product (ever?) – the Windows Azure Active Directory Rights Management USL – is renamed to the more manageable Microsoft Rights Management USL
  • The Cold Backups SA benefit changes to simply “Backup for Disaster Recovery” and you can see changes to the wording for this benefit on page 70 of the January Product Use Rights document

We lose some products:

  • It’s confirmed on page 146 that Forefront Unified Access Gateway 2010 will be the final version of the product. Customers with active SA on UAG server licences on 1 December 2013 get a grant of one Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard licence, and existing customers can add new server instances, users and devices without any requirement to order additional licences
  • Expression Encoder Pro 4 is removed, furthering Microsoft’s aim of unifying the Expression and Visual Studio brands. While Expression Encoder Pro 4 isn’t available for sale anymore, there’s a free version (Expression Encoder 4) available for download and it looks as if we’ll see Windows Azure Media Services providing new and improved functionality. More information here: http://bit.ly/KQxeyo

There are some changes to a couple of products’ use rights:

  • The buyout rights for Open Value Subscription customers with Small Business Server 2011 are amended, allowing customers to buy out an SBS 2011 CAL Suite or a Core CAL Suite (rather than Windows Server/Exchange CALs). And it’s a similar change for customers with the Premium Add-on Suite, where they’re now allowed to buy out the SBS 2011 Premium Add-on CAL Suite or a SQL Server CAL (rather than a Windows Server/SQL CAL)
  • In the December 2013 Product List (and Visual Studio 2013 Licensing brief) it’s stated that a Visual Studio Ultimate 2013 with MSDN subscriber is entitled to one management server licence for Visual Studio Deployment 2013 Standard, but that text is now removed

And the new promotions are all around Visual Studio 2013 this month:

  • There are three new promotions running from 1 January 2014 to 30 June 2014 – do check for availability in your specific geographic region
  • The first two are linked to the Server and Cloud Enrolment offering a 30% discount on either a step up from Visual Studio Professional to Premium, or Visual Studio Premium to Ultimate
  • The third is again a 30% discount, this time for both of the new Visual Studio 2013 Release Management products – Visual Studio Deployment Standard and Datacenter editions

Office 365 Switch Plans Wizard now supports switching between service families

If you’re given the wrong Office 365 plan for Christmas all is now not lost! The Switch Plans Wizard adds the capability to switch Office 365 plans across service families, so Small Business subscribers can switch to both Midsize and Enterprise plans, and Midsize Business subscribers can now switch to the Enterprise plans. Some of the restrictions remain: if you have more than 300 users you can’t use the Wizard; it’s still only for MOSA customers rather than customers who’ve purchased through Open; and any unsupported Wizardly switches must still be carried out manually. http://bit.ly/1exMwWl

Office 365 Dual Access Rights

Useful post on the Microsoft Volume Licensing Blog covering dual access rights with Office 365. Three key takeaways:

  1. There’s a good table showing which plans equate to which CALs (note that not all Office 365 plans include dual access rights)
  2. Underlying on-premise servers need to be licensed for users (SQL and Windows Server to support SharePoint, for example) and
  3. Office 365 USLs can be used to access licensed servers deployed on third party servers (licensed via Licence Mobility). http://bit.ly/1cdivtH

Announcement of Student Advantage

Microsoft announce a program where Office 365 ProPlus is free for students. It’s called Student Advantage and from 1st December 2013 “any academic institution that licenses Office for staff and faculty can provide Office 365 ProPlus for students at no additional cost.” More details are to be released over the coming weeks. Read the original announcement here: http://bit.ly/196fPJG.

Overview of the Changes to the October 2013 Product Use Rights Document

If, like me, you were watching for the calendar to tick over to the first of the quarter to see what would be new in the October 2013 PUR, then you may be disappointed in the changes that I’m about to detail. If you’re a slightly more well-balanced person, you’ll be relieved, as there are no major licensing changes revealed to get your head around.

I’ve decided to limit this blog post to the changes that affect us in October 2013 – there are some more changes that will make sense when Microsoft make announcements over the coming months and we’ll tackle those bits and pieces then.

The products that are added and deleted are very much what you’d imagine. We bid a final farewell to System Center Essentials 2010 and TechNet, while Windows 8 goes to 8.1, and System Center 2012 and Windows Server 2012 go to the new R2 versions with no changes to the licensing detailed. There’s more that’s changed on the CRM front simply because there’s a slightly different set of licences, and you’ll find updated sections both for the on-premise CRM Server 2013 and the new CRM Online offerings.

And then there are a few little bits and bobs that tidy up some loose ends. In particular, there’s confirmation that:

  • Users licensed with an Office 365 ProPlus USL may activate Microsoft Office Mobile on up to 5 smartphones (page 82)
  • External users invited to Yammer via external network functionality don’t need USLs (page 93)
  • Users licensed for Exchange Online Archiving for Exchange Server that have Exchange Standard CALs may access Exchange Server 2013 Enterprise CAL features to support the use of Exchange Online Archiving for Exchange Server (page 72)
  • There are a couple more use scenarios detailed for when a CAL is not required for Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2013 (page 42)

And for this month, that’s about it!

Overview of the Changes to the September 2013 Volume Licensing Product List

This month we bid a fond farewell to a few products and, appropriately for this back-to-school time of year, say “oooh, aren’t you growing fast?” to others.

It’s goodbye to the following:

  • Office 365 Plans K2 and E2: as you’ve probably picked up, the features in these SKUs are now consolidated into the K1 and E1 offerings and that’s what customers should renew into
  • System Center Essentials 2010: Microsoft confirmed some time ago that this would be the last release of the product, and in March 2013 SA-only and L&SA SKUs were removed, with the final L-only SKUs going this month
  • TechNet subscriptions: the retirement of TechNet was announced by Microsoft in July 2013 and the three key SKUs for Volume Licensing customers are removed this month

As we’ve been expecting, there are now an increased number of Office 365 plans available through the Open and Open Value programs. Commercial customers can now buy the following SKUs through their agreements, with Government and Academic customers having access to an only very slightly different set:

  • Office 365 Plans E1 and E3
  • Office 365 ProPlus
  • Exchange Online Plan 1
  • Exchange Online Protection

And leaving to last the fastest growing set of services, namely Azure. Just as an aside, if you’d searched for “Azure” in the September 2012 Product List you’d have found 28 instances – a search in this month’s yields 112 – an impressive year-on-year growth!

This month sees the addition of the Windows Azure Active Directory Rights Management Services User Subscription Licence (and it’s no better abbreviated to a WAADRMS USL is it?!) This licenses (of course) access to the Azure Active Directory Rights Management Service.  There’s further, useful information in the July 2013 PUR where we’re told on pages 26/28 that this USL will also license users for on-premise Rights Management through Windows Server 2012. On a related note, there’s also confirmation on these pages and on page 86 that Office 365 E3 and E4 USLs include access to Rights Management both on-premise (Windows Server 2012 ADRMS) and in the cloud (Windows Azure ADRMS).

Changes for SMB Customers Buying Office 365

Again, that very useful Office 365 Microsoft webcast has provided most of the information for this post. View it at http://bit.ly/15elDBr where the SMB-related information starts at 31:28. However, don’t rush off – I’ve summarised the main points here so feel free just to read on.

In summary, there are three key things happening for SMB customers who buy or have bought Office 365. These will be implemented between July and September 2013 so let’s see what’s happening month by month.

July 2013: Easy switching of Office 365 plans
July gave customers who have purchased their Office 365 licences through MOSA the opportunity to switch EASILY between plans. Customers have been able to switch plans in the past but it involved purchasing a new subscription and then cancelling the old one. Now there’s the “Switch plans wizard” which makes a number of upgrades simple to implement. Essentially, the wizard allows customers to switch plans in two key scenarios. Firstly, they can switch between plans in the same service family; for example customers currently subscribed to Office 365 Small Business can move to Office 365 Small Business Premium. Then, secondly, they can move from a standalone plan to an Enterprise plan; for example, from Exchange Online Plan 1 to Office 365 Plan E1. Outside of these scenarios (perhaps moving to a different service family) customers will need to switch manually (without using the wizard), although word has it that more switches will be added to the wizard as 2013 moves on.

I thought these resources were also useful:
Switch plans wizard announcement on Office 365 Technology blog at: http://bit.ly/14LI7Uv
Can I switch to a different Office 365 plan or subscription? FAQ page at: http://bit.ly/13vfRLH

August 2013: Dynamic PINs
August is all about the new Dynamic PIN functionality, and Office 365 M SKUs with this new functionality appeared on the August price lists for the Open, Open Value and Open Value Subscription programs. This new functionality helps customers who order multiple seats (you’d think that would be most customers!), and the example used in the webcast is a good one focussing as it does on a customer who wants to buy 87 seats for the M plan. Previously, the M SKUs within the Volume Licensing programs were associated with a certain number of seats which customers had to combine to end up with the required number. So, our customer wanting his 87 seats would have had to have purchased 1 x 50 seat SKU, 1 x 25 seat SKU, 2 x 5 seat SKUs and 2 x 1 seat SKUs. Now I like all things mathematical but even I can see this is a bit tedious for normal people. So the new and improved way of doing things is to purchase a single subscription which has a single key; that key is linked to the amount of seats ordered and will activate that precise number of seats. Lovely!

September 2013: More enterprise offerings in Open
And what can we look forward to in September? Well, this is the month that some of the most popular Office 365 offerings get added to the Open, Open Value and Open Value Subscription price lists. It won’t just be the M plan anymore, all of the following will be available too:

  • Office 365 ProPlus
  • Office 365 Plan E1
  • Office 365 Plan E3
  • Exchange Online Plan 1
  • Exchange Online Protection