One of the big changes Microsoft made in Office 2013 was to remove the ability for some licences to no longer be transferable. This caused a lot of confusion so I covered in a previous blog post:
Office 2013 transferability made easier
The biggest issues was that you couldn’t transfer Fully Packaged Product (FPP retail) from an old machine to a new machine as you could with Office 2010.
I know this has clearly been an issue and source of hostility for many who feel Microsoft is unfairly ‘forcing’ them to a cloud only option. However, Microsoft has just announced that it is changing the licensing agreement for the retail product to allow customers to transfer software from one computer to another. The details are in this blog post:
http://blogs.office.com/b/office-news/archive/2013/03/06/office-2013-retail-license-agreement-now-transferable.aspx
but it says in summary:
“this change is effective immediately and applies to Office Home and Student 2013, Office Home and Business 2013, Office Professional 2013 and the standalone Office 2013 applications. These transferability options are equivalent to those found in the Office 2010 retail license terms.”
So please give Microsoft some credit for making this change. Many are quick to criticize but neglect to praise Microsoft when they do something like this. I would suggest that if you want to make them more receptive to change you need to acknowledge when they do make changes like this.
Category: Uncategorized
Terminal Services and Office 365
*** Updated 26 March 2013 *** Please see the blog post Remote Desktop Services in Office 365 for details on the fact that Terminal Services with Office 365 is only available in conjunction with Office Volume Licensing.
*** Update 18 March 2013 *** Please see the blog post More on Terminal Services and Office 365 for details on how Terminal Services is only available for certain plans.
One of the most asked questions I see around Office 365 by resellers is ‘Can I run Office Professional Plus that comes with Office 365 on a Terminal Server?’. At the moment there are two answers.
For Wave 14 (older version of Office 365 – prior to Feb 27th 2013) Office Professional Plus 2010 was only available with the E3 and E4 SKUs. However, even if you purchased these plans, the version of Office Professional Plus 2010 that came with them was not licensed to run on a Terminal Server. What many people don’t realize is that this version of Office Professional Plus 2010 is not licensed to run under ANY remote condition according to:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/D/4/3D42BDC2-6725-4B29-B75A-A5B04179958B/Licensing_Microsoft_Office_Professional_Plus_for_Office_365.docx
where it says the following:
“Contrary to the software licensed under desktop application licenses for Microsoft Office, Office Professional Plus for Office 365 may not be deployed on a server or desktop and accessed remotely from another desktop. Customers may only use Office Professional Plus for Office 365 locally. Remote Use Rights are not available under Office Professional Plus for Office 365 licenses.”
Reading that says to me that not only can’t Office Professional Plus 2010 from Office 365 (Wave 14) be installed on a Terminal Server but you can also NOT access it remotely if you have it installed on your desktop. You can ONLY use Office Professional Plus 2010 from Office 365 if you are physically at the keyboard.
For the recently released version of Office 365 (Wave 15) that now includes Office Professional Plus 2013 via a number of plans (P2, M, E3 and E4) remote access rights are very different.
As Aidan Finn points out at:
http://www.aidanfinn.com/?p=14147
Great news for customers of Office 365. When you get your free bundled Office 2013, you’ll be entitled to use it on Remote Desktop Services (aka Terminal Services). In other words, if your company is into server-based computing, you’re going to save money.
You can find out the specifics in the Microsoft Product Usage Rights (PUR) document. Under Office 365ProPlus:
- Each user to whom you assign a User SL may activate the software for local or remote use on up to five concurrent OSEs.
- The Licensed User may also use the software activated by another user under a different User SL.
- Each user may also use one of the five activations on a network server with the Remote Desktop Services (RDS) role enabled.
- You may allow other users to remotely access the software solely to provide support services.
Now this solves the issue about whether an Office 365 Office Professional Plus users is licensed for Remote Desktop Services (they are) but it still leaves an issue with actually installing Office 2013 Professional Plus on a Terminal Server.
If you attempt to install Office 2013 ‘click to run’ on a Terminal Server you will get an error as outlined in this KB Article:
http://support.microsoft.akadns.net/kb/2810023
The article outlines how the ‘click to run’ version of Office 2013 is designed this way. So, if you only have Office 2013 Professional Plus from Office 365 (which are ‘click to run’ versions) how you actually get Office 2013 installed on a Terminal Server? From what I can determine, if you want to do the installation of Office 2013 software on a Terminal Server you’ll need to shell out for an additional version of Office 2013 that allows installation on a Terminal Server. The available versions that support this are either Full Packaged Product (FPP) or Volume Licensing (VL). You should also consider that Volume Licensing (VL) is not that difficult to purchase as all you need is a total of 5 licenses of any eligible Microsoft products I believe (and there are lots of cheap ones), one of which could be Office 2013 Professional Plus. Now, it would be nice if you could obtain a version of Office Professional Plus 2013 via Office 365 that WOULD install on a Terminal Server and that may still come (fingers crossed) but for now the whole remote desktop scenario is so much better with this new version of Office 365. Still some minor additional cost and hassle but again SO MUCH better that what it used to be. Kudos to Microsoft for listening and making the change.
New Office 365 bootcamp in Sydney
The latest version of Office 365 (Wave 15) is now available and there are some big changes. You’ll find not only new features and capabilities but also new plans and offerings.
If you use or resell Office 365 then this bootcamp is for you. After attending you’ll be clear on not only exactly what is available but also how to make the most from all the new features.
This bootcamp will take you beyond just Exchange, SharePoint, Lync and Office and will introduce you to new Office 365 offerings like Project Online. if you have never used Office 365 in depth before, this bootcamp is for you. If you resell Office 365 this bootcamp is for you. If you thought you knew Office 365 then this bootcamp is for you.
Sign up today at:
http://ciaops090513.eventbrite.com.au/
If you use the promotional code EARLYBIRD before April 1 you’ll receive a $50 discount off the standard entry of $299 inc. Further discounts are available to CIAOPS SharePoint and Office 365 Guide subscribers, see the latest newsletter for details.
More information and testimonials of previous bootcamps can be found at:
http://www.ciaops.com/bootcamp
I hope to see you there on the day.
Image – http://www.utsa.edu/today/images/graphics/bootcamp.jpg
Adjustable local cache size in Outlook 2013
One of the good and sometimes bad things about Outlook is that it maintains a local copy (cache) of your inbox. Obviously, as your mailbox grows so too does the cache. Where you typically see a problem is when you go to migrate Exchange servers, because generally the cache had to be recreated and all the items downloaded. Thus, if you have a 20GB inbox and you migrated it to Office 365 you’d need to generally get that 20GB to the ‘cloud’ and then allow the 20GB to synchronize to your local cache. Not much fun with very large mailboxes and very poor bandwidth.
As you can see from the above screen shot, Outlook 2013 actually allows you to set how much data will be cached. The minimum you can select is 1 month while the maximum is all (the only option previously available with Outlook). This is really handy in a shared environment like on a Terminal Server where you want to keep the local profile small.
Yet another great reason to upgrade to Office 2013!
New SharePoint Online features in Office 365
Now that the new version of Office 365 has been released and I have had a chance to look through what is on offer I thought I’d do quick round up of what I’ve found so far when it comes to the new SharePoint Online.
1. The first major point is that from what I can see EVERY new SharePoint Online plan includes SkyDrive Pro. This means that EVERY SharePoint Online users will receive 7GB of personal storage space.
There is still plenty of confusion about what SkyDrive Pro actually is. If you haven’t already I’d suggest you take a look at my previous blog post about SkyDrive Pro for clarification. Also remember that SkyDrive Pro space DOES NOT count against other shared space in SharePoint.
2. The default amount of SharePoint storage remains the same. All plans basically get 10GB of shared storage with an additional 500MB of shared space per user. This have 2 users your shared space = 10 + 2 x 0.5 = 11GB.
3. On the storage side, one thing that has changed is that ALL SharePoint Online plans can now purchase additional space! Yes, even P plans can purchase additional space (previously, they couldn’t).
4. P plans (P1 and P2) limited to one private site collection and one public web site. This is the same as the old P plan.
5. The new M plan has a limit of 20 site collections and one public web site.
6. The E plans have a limit of 3,000 site collections and one public web site.
7. Public website storage limit on all plans is 5GB.
8. The file upload limit is still 250MB per file for all plans.
9. The P plans (P1 and P2) allow 500 unique external users per month. The M plan allows 10,000 and the E plans allow 10,000.
10. Limits on syncing content in SkyDrive Pro and other SharePoint libraries. Note the following limitations related to syncing libraries to your computer with SkyDrive Pro:
• You can sync up to 20,000 items in your SkyDrive Pro library, including folders and files.
• You can sync up to 5,000 items in other SharePoint libraries, including folders and files.
• In any library, you can download files up to 2 GB.
So basically happy days!
References:
SharePoint Online: Software boundaries and limits – http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-sharepoint-online-enterprise-help/sharepoint-online-software-boundaries-and-limits-HA102694293.aspx
Sync a library to your computer – http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/support/sync-a-library-to-your-computer-HA102832401.aspx?CTT=5&origin=HA102822076
Microsoft acquires two factor provider
One of the criticisms levelled at Office 365 is that it doesn’t easily support two factor authentication. Basically this means that when you log into a system with an id and password you require another form of identification to gain access. This second factor is normally provided by a token that generates a number you enter during login.
Two factor provides an much greater level of security because it means that anyone trying to access your system need more than just a password (which could be captured by a key logged on a PC you are using). A good example of this is the PayPal security key that I have blogged about previously.
When you access PayPal you are asked for the security key number that appears when you press the key. So without this physical key you can’t gain access to PayPal services.
Now this is all well and good if you always remember to have your security key with you. But what happens if you don’t and you need to access your system? The solution is to use a software token. That is a piece of software on a device you have with you (a tablet or mobile for example) that allows you to generate the required key. A great example of this is Google Authenticator which I use with all my Google accounts as well as Lastpass. If I need to access my Google information or retrieve a password from Lastpass I simply run the Google Authenticator program on my iPad and enter the number it provides (along with my password and id) to gain access.
Even something as simple as Google Authenticator can prove technically challenging for some, so a final option is to use an SMS text message to provide the required key. As I mentioned, Microsoft has been a little late to the game but that should all change now that they have acquired Phonefactor.
Hopefully we’ll soon be able to use two factor authentication with Office 365 to provide additional security and overcome the tendency for users to implement poor passwords. It also looks like you’ll be able to use these with on premise Microsoft software but I reckon it’ll come to the cloud first.
I’ll keep my eyes peeled for when it becomes available and let you know.
More free reseller Windows 8 and Office 365 exam cram training
I am please to announced that Microsoft Australia has extended the full 2 day exam cram training session on the following exams:
Day 1 – 74-324: Administering Office 365 for Small Business
Day 2 – 70-687: Configuring Windows 8
to:
Brisbane
- Day 1 – Tuesday 14th May (74-324: Administering Office 365 for Small Business)
- Day 2 – Wednesday 15th May (70-687: Configuring Windows 8)
You can register here –
https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032549551&Culture=en-AU&community=0
It is important to note that this training in not like my normal bootcamps. These days are specifically focused on helping attendees pass the appropriate Microsoft certification exams so they are eligible to attain the Microsoft Small Business Competency. Thus, to get the most from this training you should be at least familiar with Windows 8 and Office 365.
I hope you are able to attend and I look forward to meeting you on the day but remember to book early as there is only a limited number of places available at each venue.
Now is the time to start looking at Office 365 federated identity
One of the most difficult things to implement for cloud based systems is the concept of federated identity and Single Sign On (SSO). This means that a user only needs one set of credentials to log into the cloud or the local network. It also means that when they log in somewhere they are seamlessly logged into everything else they need.
Many local network users have taken for granted the fact that when they log into their local network (say Small Business Server) they are logged into the local machine, given access to files on the server, allowed to browse the Internet and more, all from a a single login.
Now, when users information is relocated to other systems, like the cloud, single sign on becomes much more challenging because you now have two (or more) completely separate systems that must trust each other first before they can share credentials between them. In the Office 365 world this was handled by Active Directory Federated Services (ADFS). When configured, this basically allowed the local network to ‘trust’ the cloud so users information could be passed securely between them.
Problem is that ADFS is really not a small business solution. It requires additional on site hardware as well a involved configuration process which was generally beyond most SMB resellers. Don’t get me wrong, ADFS is not impossible to implement in SMB but it certainly wasn’t a few clicks of the wizard.
For that reason, we have generally not seen a lot of Single Sign On (SSO) in SMB, yet there has been growing demand for a simpler solution. Personally, I now think we are about cross the Rubicon where SSO is a requirement. In that respect I would be suggesting NOW is the time to start looking at how to implement federation and SSO with cloud based systems. Sure, there aren’t a lot of solutions out there and many are complex but I think this will all change rapidly very soon. Get in early I say to lead the pack going forward.
So, my advice to SMB resellers and IT Professionals is to put aside what you have heard about ADFS and SSO and start investigating what they can offer. Have a look at third party options and two factor authentication. Most importantly keep you ear to ground on what changes are happening in the industry and be especially watchful of what Microsoft will bring to the table in the near future to greatly ease the pain of SSO in SMB.
CIAOPS 
