Microsoft Announces New Long-Term Licensing Option for Academic Institutions

REDMOND, Wash., March 10, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Microsoft Corp. introduced a new, streamlined and cost-effective subscription licensing program designed to comprehensively meet the licensing needs of academic institutions. Microsoft Enrollment for Education Solutions (EES) gives academic institutions in K-12 and higher education additional control over the pricing and terms of their Microsoft contracts and provides an accessible and user-friendly licensing process. Also, by lowering entry requirements, small schools that have historically not been able to acquire subscription licenses are now able to access Microsoft software and services at a low cost in order to help students interact, collaborate and learn.

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"Microsoft has a long history of helping U.S. schools save billions of dollars every year by offering discounts to our software. With EES, we have further reduced costs by moving to an annual purchase process that counts employees instead of devices to determine price and add more value," said Sig Behrens, general manager of U.S. Education at Microsoft. "Lower costs mean immediate savings and the opportunity for schools to reinvest and upgrade their current IT infrastructure to the next set of technologies that will help them achieve 21st century learning. EES offers the opportunity to get more for less so schools can use their savings to add improved communication and collaboration tools, security and management solutions, and Microsoft IT Academy."

EES consolidates Microsoft software and services under a single subscription agreement for a broad list of the latest Microsoft Enterprise products, including Microsoft Office Professional 2010, Windows 7 Enterprise, Microsoft Core Client Access License (CAL)suite and Microsoft Enterprise CAL suite. With this single agreement, EES helps reduce academic customers' risk of noncompliance, affords institutions a great deal of flexibility in their technology choices and allows administrators to tailor their software programs to meet their institutions' specific needs.

Helping Improve Education During a Budget Crisis

With states across the U.S. facing huge budget deficits, many school districts are being asked to cut a significant amount of their operating budgets. Katy Independent School District in Texas serves more than 60,000 students with 7,500 faculty and staff, and is in the process of upgrading to Windows 7, Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 with the help of its new EES agreement.

"My biggest concern was impact to the classroom. This new licensing agreement keeps us on the path of always having the latest and greatest technology to make sure our kids are prepared for college and the workplace," said Lenny Schad, chief information officer, Katy Independent School District. "We will be saving $350,000 year over year and will also be adopting some of Microsoft's security, virtualization and management tools that will allow us to eliminate duplicate costs and services from another vendor."

For Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools (MNPS), where there are more than 78,000 students and 9,500 faculty and staff, the new EES agreement provides the ability to implement a holistic approach to technology purchasing, planning and deployment across the district, which will enable the district to continue to be a leader in education reform in Tennessee's Race to the Top initiatives. MNPS expects to save close to $100,000 in the first year and for that number to double the following year. In addition, MNPS expects to save $250,000 just by switching to the Microsoft anti-virus solution included in the agreement.

"Our new Microsoft agreement is helping us consolidate and control costs and make sure everyone is compliant and using the same software," said John Williams, chief information officer, Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools. "We were able to purchase a district wide site license for all 30,000 PCs that will allow us to upgrade to Windows 7 and Office 2010 and provide the platform and training we need to build out more innovative collaboration solutions that will bring transformational improvements to the district."

The Benefits of EES

EES benefits include the following:

• With EES, institutions count full-time employees only once a year to stay in compliance. Any new faculty or staff members added to the participating institution throughout the year are automatically fully licensed, so administrators only need to verify these licenses annually. Institutions are therefore fully covered for desktop platform products regardless of yearly fluctuations in the number of employees or devices.
• Depending upon the size of the organization, institutions can acquire EES subscription licenses one of two ways:
  • Customers with as few as five full-time equivalent (FTE) employees can license through an Authorized Education Reseller by signing the simplified Open Value Subscription Agreement for Education Solutions online eAgreement.
  • Customers with a minimum of 1,000 FTE employees may also license through a Large Account Reseller by signing the Campus and School Agreement and the Enrollment for Education Solutions.
• Institution administrators can add additional technology in any quantity over time, so Microsoft-provided IT and software programs can evolve gradually as the institution's needs and curriculum change.
• EES also provides student licensing, which provides simple avenues for students to use the licensed product on the institution's owned or leased devices located in classrooms or open access labs.
• Participating institutions receive free access to Live@edu, a comprehensive suite of hosted services for students, alumni and faculty. The system includes e-mail, calendars, document sharing, instant messaging and video chat.
• Customers have the option to pay for services with either an annual payment or a three-year enrollment option, eliminating unnecessary billing cycles and additional paperwork for administrative offices.

More information about Enrollment for Education Solutions (EES) is available at http://www.microsoft.com/education/license/howtobuy/agreements/ees.aspx.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

SOURCE Microsoft Corp.