Tag Archives: Office 365

Device-based licensing for Office 365 ProPlus

Microsoft announce that an Office 365 ProPlus device add-on licence will be available for EA and EAS customers in the summer of 2020.

This will effectively allow an Office 365 ProPlus licence to be assigned to a device so that multiple users can use Office 365 ProPlus on that device, whether or not they have their own User SL for Office 365.

A similar add-on was made available in August 2019 for education customers with an EES, where the add-ons are free as long as all Education Qualified Users are licensed with an Office 365 ProPlus User SL.

Find the latest announcement for commercial customers here: http://bit.ly/2KSJjnB and recap on the education offer here: http://bit.ly/30enR2Z.

General Availability of Windows Virtual Desktop

Microsoft announce the General Availability of Windows Virtual Desktop on 30 September, 2019: http://bit.ly/33abTIG. This page is a useful reminder of the licences required to access WVD: http://bit.ly/2UxKalz, and it’s been updated with the changes to the Microsoft 365 licence assignment rules where customers can now assign Microsoft 365 licences to any user, regardless of the user’s primary device, to use WVD and Office 365 – see the September 2019 Product Terms for details. If you’re a partner, then you’ll find some useful partner resources on WVD here: http://bit.ly/33fm4eS.

Planner comes to F1 plans

Microsoft announce that Planner will be added to Microsoft 365 F1 and Office 365 F1 commercial and government plans starting at the beginning of October 2019. The Planner functionality is the same as in higher level plans, and there’s no action for a customer to take.

Find the announcement here: http://bit.ly/2lStHb5.

Office 365 ProPlus Device-based Subscription for Education

Microsoft announce an Office 365 ProPlus Device-based Subscription for Education, which means that educational institutions can now assign an Office 365 ProPlus licence to a device rather than a user – useful, of course, where shared devices are used.

The experience for users is that those who DO have a User Subscription Licence including Office 365 ProPlus will be able to use the apps on the licensed device as well as their associated cloud services like OneDrive, while completely unlicensed users will be able to use the apps on the device and to save files locally. Using Office 365 ProPlus in this way doesn’t count towards one of the five allowed installations for a licensed user.

This new, free, add-on licence is available from 16 August, 2019 for customers who have an Enrollment for Education Solutions (EES) agreement where they’ve covered all Education Qualified Users with Office 365 ProPlus or a suite that includes it. They’re then entitled to as many Device-based Subscriptions as the number of Education Qualified Users.

The Device-based Subscription replaces the Lab and Library benefit that was the previous solution for institutions needing Office installed on a device basis, and note that this benefit remains for OVS-ES agreements where the new solution is not available.

Find the announcement from the Microsoft Education team here: http://bit.ly/30enR2Z, and refer to this page for deployment instructions: http://bit.ly/2KSJjnB.  

Changes to Office 365 Client Licensing and Activation

Microsoft announce that there will be some changes to the licensing and activation of the subscription-based Office clients such as Office 365 ProPlus.

Users will be able to install Office on a new device without being prompted to deactivate Office on another device when they reach the five-device limit, and will simply be signed out of Office on the device where Office has been least recently used.

These changes will start rolling out to customers from August, with exact timings dependent on which release channel a customer is using.

Find the full announcement here: http://bit.ly/2JZZctp.

Multi-Geo Capabilities in Office 365

Microsoft change the minimum requirements for the Multi-Geo capabilities in Office 365 from 2,500 Office 365 licences to 500. What is Multi-Geo? Essentially it allows a single Office 365 tenant to span across multiple Office 365 data centre geographies and gives customers the ability to store their Exchange and OneDrive data, at-rest, on a per-user basis, in their chosen geographies. You can imagine this helps some organisations to meet their data residency requirements.

Find out more about Multi-Geo here: http://bit.ly/2EOBkWx and see page 61 of the June 2019 Product Terms for an overview of the licensing requirements. Find the Product Terms document here: http://bit.ly/MSproductterms.

Home Use Program FAQ

There’s an updated FAQ on the Home Use Program with two main items of interest.

Firstly, the number of qualifying Office 365/Microsoft 365 licences that education or non-profit customers need is reduced to 2,000 to match the requirements for commercial or government customers.

Secondly, there are instructions added for IT administrators to manage the HUP benefit through the Microsoft Store for Business.

Find the FAQ here: http://bit.ly/2Y45JrL.

Office 365 ProPlus Licensing Articles

If you’ve got an interest in deploying Office 365 ProPlus in an enterprise environment then the list of articles here (http://bit.ly/2GaurkA) is worth a look.

Of particular usefulness to those focusing on licensing is an “Overview of Shared Computer Activation for Office 365 ProPlus” (http://bit.ly/2t4biIn) and an “Overview of Licensing and Activation in Office 365 ProPlus” (http://bit.ly/2MLhSwy).

One for your weekend reading list!

Office 365 Home Use Program Benefit

The new Office 365 Home Use Program benefit is added to the February 2019 Product Terms. If a customer has SAM coverage on the Applications pool then employees may buy an Office 365 Home or Personal subscription through the Microsoft Home Use Program website at a discounted rate.

What’s interesting (and different to its Office 2019 HUP counterpart) is that employees may renew the subscription at the special HUP price regardless of whether they’re still employed by the qualifying organisation and that organisation’s SAM coverage status.

Find these details on page 80 and get the February 2019 Product Terms here: http://bit.ly/MSproductterms.

Office 365 for Mac available in the Mac App store

Microsoft announce that Office 365 for Mac is now available on the Mac App store, where users with an Office 365 subscription that includes the Office apps will be able to install the Mac versions of the Office products with a single click.

Find the announcement here: http://bit.ly/2RAfNV6 Apple also make the announcement (https://apple.co/2WhsCY4) highlighting the further benefit that businesses will now be able to use the Apple Business Manager to easily distribute the apps to employees.