Additions to the April 2016 Product Terms

There are a couple of additions to the April 2016 Product Terms document: some add-ons for Dynamics AX and some USLs for Cloud App Security. Read on for the detail!

Dynamics AX – that’s Dynamics built on and for Azure – was made available in March 2016 and now we’ve got some extra licensing options. If you’re a Dynamics AX 2012 R3 on-premises customer and you have existing licences with active Software Assurance then you can now purchase For SA USLs to add on access to the cloud service. There’s a table on page 55 which lists the qualifying licences and the eligible For SA USLs you can purchase.

Cloud App Security, based on Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Adallom, helps IT and security teams gain deeper visibility and enhanced protection for cloud applications. How’s it licensed? Page 53 confirms it’s with a User Subscription Licence, and if you want more information and an intro to how it works, then head over to the Microsoft Cyber Trust Blog: http://bit.ly/23H7Fqq.

E5 Arrives!

It’s December 1st and Office 365 E5 is added to the December 2015 Product Terms as expected. Page 58 tells us that there will be a full USL, an Add-on USL, and a From SA USL, with availability through the different Volume Licensing programs matching that of its best buddy E3.

If you’re not sure what’s in this brand new suite, then head over to the December 2015 Online Services Terms document where the table on page 26 has been updated to show the various components.

Many of these components are new (Office 365 Delve Analytics for example), and these are added to the Product Terms as standalone licences too.

Bridge CALs Available in Open Value

From November 1st there are Bridge CALs available for Open Value customers.

When do you need a Bridge CAL? Well, if you’ve got an enterprise wide commitment to Office and a CAL Suite but want to transition to either EMS or Office 365 then you need a way to continue to pay for the on-premises components that haven’t transitioned – and that’s the Bridge CAL. They’ve been available in the Enterprise Agreement for a few years and now Open Value customers are able to buy them too.

See page 14 of the November 2015 Product Terms document.

Bridge CALs now USLs

EA customers transitioning from Office and a CAL Suite to Office 365 or the Enterprise Mobility Suite need a Bridge CAL, and from 1 August 2015 the Core and Enterprise CAL Suite Bridges are only available as User Subscription Licences.

See pages 14/15 of the August 2015 Product Terms document.

“Product Terms Explained” Guide

If you’re new to Microsoft licensing then you may find this just-released introductory guide from Microsoft useful. It goes through some of the licensing basics (what is a licence, what is SA etc) and introduces the new Product Terms document. Then you meet Wendy, the Director of IT for Trey Research, and look at the projects she’s working on and see what licences she’s going to need. It’s a different way of introducing licensing and worth a look through: http://bit.ly/1SJDo4F.

August 2015 Enterprise CAL Suite Changes

There are two changes to the Enterprise CAL Suite from 1 August 2015.

Firstly, Advanced Threat Analytics is added and is, in fact, added to all the Enterprise CAL Bridges and the Enterprise Mobility Suite too (see page 70 of the August 2015 Product Terms).

Secondly, the System Center Client Management Suite is “removed” – in quotes because the rights to use it will be included in the Enterprise CAL Suite and ECAL Bridge for Office 365 through 31 December, 2016 (page 86).

Due to these changes there are also August 2015 updates to two Volume Licensing Briefs:

• “Base and Additive CALs” (http://bit.ly/1bQsSCV) and
• “Licensing the Core and Enterprise CAL Suites” (http://bit.ly/J3P8NJ).

Both of these briefs include the amendments noted above along with Skype for Business Server CALs replacing Lync CALs, and the second document has a jolly nice definition of Advanced Threat Analytics if that’s a new product for you.

Microsoft explains the Product Terms

From 1st July the Product List and the PUR are combined into one document – the Product Terms.

Read Microsoft’s blog post as they explain the benefits of this new consolidated monthly document: http://bit.ly/1T7ZBGs.

Product List and PUR Combined

There’s big Volume Licensing news this 1st of July – the Product List and the Product Use Rights (PUR) documents are combined into one document called the Product Terms, which will be updated monthly.

There’s an FAQ on this new document here: http://bit.ly/1RS3gFP and an overview video towards the bottom of this page, where you can also download the document: http://bit.ly/MSvlterms.

We’ll do a more detailed blog post soon highlighting some of the important changes.