Microsoft Subscription Licencing (EES / CIS)
What is a Subscription Licence?
A subscription licence is the most cost effective and easiest ways to licence a schools Microsoft estate, both on-premise and in the cloud. With a subscription licence you no longer need to buy individual product licences per PC (known as perpetual licences) or count the number of devices in your organisation.
Instead you count the total number of Full Time Equivalent Staff at the start of your agreement (FTE’s would be considered any member of staff who works 200 or more hours in a year, staff who do not use IT such as kitchen or cleaning staff do not need to be counted) if staffing increases or decrease mid-year you do not need to make any changes to your agreement, simply report the new total on the 1 year anniversary date of your agreement.
With subscription licences you are always eligible for the latest version of the products you subscribe to, this would allow customers to move from Windows 8 to Windows 10 or from Office 2013 to Office 2016 as soon as these new product become available with no unexpected costs or large investments in software licencing.
What are the benefits?
Besides always having the latest software at your fingertips you will also benefit from the following:
- Peace of mind for licence compliance and easy administration – Because you only need to report FTE’s at the start / anniversary date of the agreement you don’t have to worry about buying one off licences mid-year if a new PC is installed. If you take an EES subscription with One IT then we will do all of the administration on your behalf
- Stay current all the time – school often “skip” product versions and go long periods (3-7 years) between upgrades because perpetual licences cost so much. In the case of EES you could install the latest version as soon as it becomes available
- Pick ‘n’ Mix licences – you can licence products such as Visio or Project for a small group of users and increase / decrease this as each anniversary if you needs change
- The EES subscription gives added cloud benefits as well, these include 5 FREE Office 365 Professional plus licences for every member of staff and student in your school. They can use Office 365 ProPlus on personal Windows, Mac OSX, iOS, Windows Mobile and Android devices
One IT is proud to be one of the few companies to hold a Microsoft Consortium Agreement in the UK. This agreement has hugely simplified how we as a company licences schools and how we are able to pass on bulk buy savings to our education customers. We can offer multiple EES subscription options and tailor a licence model to fit your schools needs not just now but for the future to help you unlock the full potential of you IT investment.
One IT is pleased to work with SBL for all of our licencing and last year produced a case study around our migration from a per school OVS-ES licence model to a Microsoft Consortium model. To see the case study please click here (insert link to attached PDF).
What is the difference between EES and CIS?
In basic terms EES is for end user devices, this would be devices such as PC’s / Laptops / Tablets and is designed to cover end user software such as Windows and Office.
CIS is the “Core Infrastructure Suite” and is designed for servers. Similar to the desktop equivalent CIS gives the latest versions of Windows Server and System Centre allowing for schools to stay current with the latest server and management technologies.
As schools tend to purchase a server and run it for 5 years they are often left waiting until the hardware is due replacement before upgrading the server operating system. One IT has found this model holds school back when new features are release so as standard all servers we purchase for schools we include the CIS costs, this enables us to deliver server operating system upgrades much sooner and take advantage of the latest features. Because One IT also operate a Virtual Server environment for every school, upgrades are often deployed alongside existing services and then migrated with little to no downtime or impact to the schools network or end user productivity.
What’s included with the EES subscription?
- 5x copies of Office 365 Professional Plus for every staff member and student in your school
- The latest edition of the following:
- Client Operating Systems – Currently Windows 8.1 Enterprise but soon to be Windows 10 Enterprise
- Office Productivity Suite – Currently Office 2013 but soon to be Office 2016 (Office 2014 on Mac OSX)
- Client Access Licences – Currently Windows Server and System Centre 2012R2 as well as Exchange and SharePoint 2013
Additional products such as DreamSpark Standard are also included for Free and programs such as the Microsoft IT Academy can be added to your subscription for an annual cost.
For more information on DreamSpark click here
For more information on MS IT Academy click here
Case Studies
How do I find out more?
We are always happy to help with licencing and would welcome the opportunity to discuss your licence needs in more detail. Please contact us to arrange a call or meeting to review your current and future licence goals.