Tag Archives: Office 365

Overview of the Changes to the June 2015 Volume Licensing Product List

If you look at page 10 of the June 2015 Product List you’ll find that there are no changes listed for this month. So, we had to dig a bit deeper to find the (admittedly extraordinarily minor!) changes:

  • First of all, the Planning Services which used to include Lync Server and now include Skype for Business Server are indeed updated to be “Skype for Business and Exchange Deployment Planning Services (S&EDPS)” on page 68
  • Then there are some changes to the Microsoft Azure Services section on pages 41/42 with a slight amendment to the definition of “Consumption Rates” and the inclusion of MPSA as a qualifying agreement to set pricing for the Server pool and thus the Azure services in an EA
  • And finally, there’s wording added on page 58 for the purchase eligibility of the Office 365 From SA User SLs. This clarifies that EA customers who licensed Office 365 before 1 August 2014 may indeed also purchase From SA USLs at renewal for any additional Office 365 users that they added during their Enrolment term

US Government Community Cloud

Government SKUs are available for the Enterprise Cloud Suite and Project/Visio for Office 365 in the May 2015 Product List. ECS is also available within the US Government Community Cloud program and the Product List is updated to show more clearly which services are available under this program – look out for a “UC” cell identifier.

If you want to know more about the GCC program and Office 365 features that are specific to this program, then this is a good resource: http://bit.ly/1JB3RsF.

Office 365 Education – free to eligible students and teachers

Office 365 Education is now available free to students and teachers at schools that have licensed Office institution-wide for their faculty and staff.

The plan allows the installation of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher, and Access on up to 5 PCs or Macs, and the Office apps on other mobile devices.

It also includes 1TB of OneDrive storage and rights to Office Online.

See the Microsoft announcement confirming availability from 23 Feb 2015 here: http://bit.ly/1wQvxmg, and details on eligibility here: http://bit.ly/1M4JLJ5.

Changes to services in the Office 365 Enterprise Plans

The services included in the Office 365 Enterprise Plans are always being refined and here are two to know about: from January 2015 new customers won’t have access to a SharePoint Online Public Website, although existing customers will continue to have access for another two years (http://bit.ly/1wvnKJX) and all Office 365 customers will have access to Office 365 Video by early 2015. What is Office 365 Video?

Essentially a new SharePoint portal type optimised for video so that organisations can post, share and discover video content. It’s powered by Azure Media Services and if you want to know more, it would be worth checking out the announcement here: http://bit.ly/1FschEy

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Simplification comes to Office 365 Activation

As of 17 November 2014, it’s easier to activate Office 365 subscriptions purchased via Open and Open Value programs.

Firstly, there’s a new streamlined activation method which means that you don’t even have to go into VLSC and the product keys are populated automatically for you – download a user guide for this process here: http://bit.ly/1yOOUQr.

Alternatively, if you prefer to initiate processes like this from VLSC then that’s still possible and you get the benefit of the simplified no-copying-and-pasting-of-product-keys improvements too.

Here’s the user guide explaining this process: http://bit.ly/1wciZbu.

See the Microsoft announcement here: http://bit.ly/1yOLoWd.

Changes to the Office 365 Subscriptions

There have been a number of changes announced in recent weeks as to what’s included in various Office 365 subscriptions, so here’s the summary:

Office for the iPad

  • Back in March, Office for the iPad was announced and the free apps allowed viewing and presenting of documents whereas an Office 365 subscription was required for document creation and editing. In early November, the rules changed and the free apps now allow users to create and edit Office content while an Office 365 Subscription gives advanced editing and collaboration capabilities, and unlimited OneDrive storage. Check out the announcement here: http://bit.ly/1xxmi9Y

Office for the iPhone

  • Office for the iPhone was also announced in November with the same rules as for the iPad apps – so no Office 365 subscription required for creating and editing documents. Check this link for details (and pretty pictures of the new apps!): http://bit.ly/1vIcWwv

Outlook for the Mac

  • A brand new Outlook for the Mac was announced at the end of October with all of the enhancements you’d expect. What was perhaps less expected is that this new version is only available to Office 365 subscribers including commercial customers and those with Office 365 Home, Office 365 Personal and Office 365 University subscriptions. The announcement is here: http://bit.ly/1tqUVMv

OneDrive for Business

  • At the end of October it was announced that all Office 365 subscribers across consumer, commercial and education plans would receive unlimited storage: http://bit.ly/1FmJFqZ
  • Office 365 ProPlus customers now also have access to OneDrive for Business with an initial allocation of 1 TB of storage per user which will be updated to unlimited storage in the near future. This announcement (http://bit.ly/1r8572b) explains how the rollout will work with existing Office 365 ProPlus customers getting access to OneDrive for Business before the end of January 2015, and new customers who subscribe after 1 December 2014 being automatically provisioned for OneDrive