Microsoft  Volume Licensing Purchases

School Agreement or Academic Select

 We mentioned the MIcrosoft "Proof of Concepts" - these are offered until Dec 31. I've asked MS for more information about who to contact, but I found the list of POCs.  Please visit the POC link below, or give John a call for more information about putting this in place in your district.  Essentially, they will fund the Partner to come in and install/configure the solution in your environment - you buy the product.  This is ideal for those who have a School Agreement or who are considering a purchase of one of these products.

As school budgets are being affected by the economy, we at NHSTE have organized a Microsoft K-12 purchasing consortium which takes affect July 1, 2009.  This applies to all types of purchases of Microsoft software, servers, and operating systems through both School Agreement and Academic Select licensing.  Smaller districts which were previously not eligible for pricing discounts will particularly benefit from this agreement.  Statewide, we are excited to now have a dedicated Microsoft Account Representative and will be bringing you more information about MS products and licensing throughout the year.

The Consortium is officially off the ground! GovConnection is preparing portals for each district/customer who enrolls in the Consortium (no purchase obligation necessary), where you can access price lists for Microsoft Academic Select pricing.  For single or multiple purchases of any MS product, Microsoft Academic Select is less expensive pricing than Microsoft Open.  If you are currently buying Open, you will definitely want to considering joining the Consortium.
 
The procedure is:
1.      Contact your GovConnection Rep.  If you don’t know who that is, contact Chris Guerrette at cguerrette@govconnection.com .

2.      Sign and return a 2-page Consortium enrollment form.  This does not obligate you to purchase anything, but it does give you an enrollment number and access to the Microsoft Volume Licensing portal.  Be sure to use an accurate email address on the form!

3.      GovConnection will submit your enrollment form and will set you up with a NHSTE purchasing portal website, where you can see customized price lists and other information.

With regard to the School Agreement (annual enrollment) program … after some back and forth and changes at the districts, we do not have the numbers (2500 workstations) to achieve Level B pricing.  However, thanks to some great connections and a lot of scrambling, Microsoft has agreed to give us Level B pricing for the first two years while we build the Consortium.  For districts with less than 2500 workstations, this is approximately a 10% savings.  For School Agreement customers, we are working out a new enrollment date of Oct 1 of this year – if you have some input on the best date for your district, please email me directly.
 
For both programs, there are some great opportunities, such as Faculty Home Use rights for Office and Faculty and Student purchases for Office at greatly reduced pricing.  Microsoft is also offering the IT Academy, which is the opportunity to have your students or staff certified at a cost of $1,750/year – more details on that program are at http://www.microsoft.com/education/MSITAcademy/default.mspx .

Account Manager: Rick Grady rgrady@microsoft.com
Technical Specialist: Matt Hickey matthic@microsoft.com
Licensing Specialist: Jessika Graham jegraham@microsoft.com
You will still contact GovConnection for quotations, but if you have questions about server products and how Microsoft may work best in your environment, these will be your contacts.  You are always welcome to start your contact through me on behalf of NHSTE.