Today is the first day of Microsoft’s EES licensing and this has massive implications if your school uses Microsoft Products.
I am not going to cover the student licensing model because I’m relatively confident this model wont fit for most Primary Schools.
The new licensing model we will look at covers Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office licensing. We are also ignoring Exchange and Sharepoint CALs(CAL Suite).
What does this all mean in real terms?
- You pay Microsoft per year for licensing
- Teachers can use Microsoft Office at home
- An average 2 form entry will be paying for 30 members of staff
- Updates to latest versions of products without any extra cost (Software Assurance).
When might EES not be appropriate?
- EES may also not be cost effective if you purchase OEM licenses or don’t use Microsoft Office.
- EES may not be useful if your school does not have a high quantity of devices (netbooks/laptops) running Microsoft Office.
- If your school intends to NOT purchase new hardware or new Microsoft products.
- If you don’t want to get into an annual rolling contract with Microsoft due to funding uncertainties or due to a requirement of a grant etc.
Time for some maths…
All of these figures are based on a 2 form entry school buying new Microsoft Office licenses every 5 years.
Standard licensing model:
Cost per office license per machine, £32
Average # of devices with office installed, 80
*Windows License — Excluded because is OEM (Roughly £50 per device)
Average cost every 5 years — £2560
Ergo cost per year on Non EES per device license model — £512
EES:
Average cost per EES Office license per member of staff — £20
Average # of staff members per 2 form entry: 30
Ergo cost per year for office on EES: £600
Ergo cost per year for Windows on EES: £600
Note that I haven’t covered any Server CALS.
To summarize
EES breaks even at roughly 100 devices in a 2 form entry school but the advantage is that staff can use Microsoft Office at home so don’t need their own copy.
It is unlikely EES will be cheaper than OEM as buying a device without windows lately is difficult however XP Pro upgrades are roughly £50 per device so if you buy 15 devices per year then EES Windows Licenses work out better value. A smart hardware manufacturer should see this opportunity and provide OS free hardware so that schools can leverage this new licensing model.
Hopefully someone from Microsoft can respond with some information about CAL licensing and any mistakes in this post. Word on the street is CAL pricing will be staying relatively similar for Server CALS, this pricing isn’t due to be released till May.
I quickly bashed up an EEE license cost calculator so you can see if it’s cost effective for your school to move or not
If you want to know more about EES please get in touch with Primary Technology who will be happy to help.
