Licencing SharePoint 2010 for Education in the UK
Dave Coleman | May 19, 2010
As you may know last week I gave a presentation at Microsoft Reading as part of a series of events showcasing SharePoint 2010, one of the slides in the deck was on the thorny subject of licencing prices, now I know from past experience that this is always a shall we say “lively” subject and I am also aware from the consultancy visits we have done over the past couple of years one of the most confusing and troublesome areas when it comes to making the decision to rollout SharePoint in an education establishment. So I thought I would be brave (Some would say fool hardy) and write this article on education prices for SharePoint 2010 in the UK and I hope that this goes someway to helping people decide and also clears up some confusion that seems to exist in the licencing world.
I would also be very interested in hearing about education prices for this product worldwide so that I can update this post with more information and hopefully create a one stop shop before people plunge into the murky world of SharePoint licencing so any info gratefully received please comment or email me at dave@sharepointedutech.com .
So here goes (Deep Breath) all of these prices I have gathered from the Ramesys website here there are of course many licence resellers available but the Ramesys site was the easiest to find the product details.
You will require a SharePoint server licence which retails at £560.12 you then get a choice of device CALS or user CALS you DO NOT need both user CALS for adult or members of staff are £11.95 each and for your students that are going to use SharePoint £0.89p each, device CALS are also £11.95 each, another common misconception for schools is the need to purchase the internet connector licence this sells for between £4500 and £5000 and is another component that is not required by schools, Ray Fleming from Microsoft has also written a blog post to cover this and included a link to a document that covers the exemption of schools for the need of the internet connector licence here
Also covered by your schools SharePoint licencing is parent logins these parents/guardians do not require user CALS and are covered by this letter from Microsoft here
So to summarise I have created a table of licencing for a fictitious school with 1000 pupils and 150 staff.
| SharePoint server licence | £560.12 |
| 150 Staff CALS @ £11.95 | £1792.50 |
| 1000 Students CALS @ £0.89 | £890 |
| Parent CALS | Not Required |
| Internet Connector Licence | Not Required |
| Total | £3242.62 |
There are also many ways to licence your school with Microsoft products including the Schools agreement or Campus agreement all of the prices I have shown here are based on perpetual select licence prices. More details can also be found at Ray’s blog post on SharePoint licencing here
A quick update:- Some questions where asked today via twitter about hosting a website on SharePoint and the internet connector licence well Ray Fleming came to the rescue with this information “You don’t need an external connector for a SharePoint school website unless people login. It’s fine for anonymous”
Todays Update (20/5/2010)
After looking into this a little more, it seems that a few things have changed with SharePoint 2010 licensing. As that’s just been released, I’m going to look into the changes, and then I’ll let you know how it affects this summary Dave.
I appreciate you taking the time to describe this simply, because I am sure there are lots of schools with similar questions up and down the country.
Ray
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by UK Live@Edu Team, Dave Coleman, Chris McKinley, Alan Richards, Chris McKinley and others. Chris McKinley said: RT @davecoleman146: Newpost Licencing SharePoint 2010 for Education in UK http://bit.ly/dnrrCM #sp2010 >>The myths busted and Qs Answered! [...]
[...] Licencing SharePoint 2010 for Education in the UK (Chris and Daves SharePoint and Tech Blog)As you may know last week I gave a presentation at Microsoft Reading as part of a series of events showcasing SharePoint 2010, one of the slides in the deck was on the thorny subject of licencing prices, now I know from past experience that this is always a shall we say “lively” subject and I am also aware from the consultancy visits we have done over the past couple of years one of the most confusing and troublesome areas when it comes to making the decision to rollout SharePoint in an education establishment. So I thought I would be brave (Some would say fool hardy) and write this article on education prices for SharePoint 2010 in the UK and I hope that this goes someway to helping people decide and also clears up some confusion that seems to exist in the licencing world. [...]
After looking into this a little more, it seems that a few things have changed with SharePoint 2010 licensing. As that’s just been released, I’m going to look into the changes, and then I’ll let you know how it affects this summary Dave.
I appreciate you taking the time to describe this simply, because I am sure there are lots of schools with similar questions up and down the country.
Ray
[...] a look at Chris and Daves SharePoint and Tech Blog Tony — Dyslexia, not a condition but a way of loaf! My views, not my employer or any other [...]
Hi Dave,
Great article, however your maths is wrong in the table. 11.95 x 150 is 1792.50 which makes the total 3242.50.
David
Whoops good point just updating now thankyou
David
I am afraid this does not really clarify the licensing issue. Can I refer you here to http://www.microsoftvolumelicensing.com/userights/ProductPage.aspx?pid=320 and the section in particular which reads:-
________________________________________
SharePoint™ Server 2010 Standard CAL
Student Only CALs (Academic Open License and Academic Select)
Student Only CALs are restricted to license student owned PCs or institution owned PCs dedicated to an individual student and are NOT for use in labs or classrooms.
________________________________________
Now this is open to some interpretation but to my mind it does not cover the use in the classroom and consequently schools would need full device CALs for use within their establishment. The Microsoft blog referred to (Ray Flemming) does not actually cover the licensing within school merely the use by parents at home.
If I am misinterpreting the information then my apologies, but schools definitely need clarification on this as the financial ramifications are huge.
Dave O
Hi Dave,
I’m not sure that’s quite right. From http://www.microsoftvolumelicensing.com/userights/ProductPage.aspx?pid=320
SharePoint™ Server 2010 Standard CAL
Student Only CALs (Academic Open License and Academic Select)
Student Only CALs are restricted to license student owned PCs or institution owned PCs dedicated to an individual student and are NOT for use in labs or classrooms.
Which to me says that any computers the school owns, which students use, but are not dedicated to them need Device CALs.
So if your school has 500 computers that’s an extra £5975, which is a huge amount. I would love to be proved wrong on this if you can.
Richard
Just checked the Ramesys web site you linked to. There now seems to be a SharePoint Server 2010 (Device) Student Access Licence at £0.89, which I’m sure wasn’t there before. If this can be used per computer, that would help a lot.
Richard
Great post!
[...] Coleman posted a great blog on it at http://www.sharepointedutech.com/2010/05/19/licencing-sharepoint-2010-for-education-in-the-uk/, however on further investigation it has since come to light, and verified by Microsoft that he is [...]
[...] I stated in a previous post on licencing SharePoint 2010 for education in the UK the subject of Microsoft licencing is always a lively discussion and so it proved with that [...]