Office 365 for education

@Allen_MSFT: Does this mean the current staff that have live accounts through our domain (example@ourdomain.com) will no longer be able to access their content on skydrive ect..?

@Allen_MSFT:  Thanks for your response, it was helpful.  I think we actually have Exchange Online for our email service since we see the Outlook Web App when were logged in.

@stachowskik - You have Exchange 2010 since Exchange Online which is based on Exchange 2010 that comes with Outlook Web App is not yet available to the general public.

@Allen: Thank you so much for your patience with these questions. I've continued thinking about this since my last post. It would be really helpful if you would continue to allow the Office 365 and Windows Live account to be linked. The linking of passwords between the two services is very helpful, so that our users don' t need to continue maintaining two passwords. And using OWA instead of Hotmail eliminates the confusion of having two email accounts for the same user. So, it would be really helpful if Office 365 would continue to create a Windows Live ID whenever you create an Office 365 account. Plus, it would drive more users to Live services and help familiarize them with the options. Most of our users who access the Live services through Live@edu have never tried out anything besides Hotmail (if that), and in training, most are pretty impressed with the options available through Live.

@Allen - Yes, I know Exchange Online has been available commercial for a while and as I know which is what you said it is based on Exchange 2007. I use it everyday. But I said Exchange Online based on Exchange 2010, which somes with Office Web Apps is not yet available which is what comes with Office365.

Can anyone point me in the direction of some empirical research that concludes that live@edu improved student learning outcomes? Significantly? Sure, the capacity was there for those who persisted but I suspect that this new offering being promoted as student-centric and student friendly when it might be a  "business-oriented" entity in reality.

How might this benefit the little child in the classroom e.g. 7 years old?

7yr olds rarely need to collaborate or use messagin features but if they do they have Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Lync Online for that, which is also customizable, compared to not having anything at all or some other more expensive option that comes as is. And while at it, your school saves since these are free for students, you also save by moving faculty and staff mailbox to Exchange Online even if you do not enable SharePoint Online and Lync Online for them. These are viable reasons in my opinion since all you may end up needing onsite is a single server to host your Line of Business applications (if you have not moved those to the cloud already) and perhaps Active Directory (which can also be federated with this service so users only sign in once), file/printer sharing, etc.

No one has answered the question on the ILM yes or no?  Is it needed to provide the SSO or is there a cheaper alternative.  I for one can not afford ILM, but then again I've heard there is now a new pricing model for school in the UK (not sure about others) where only our staff who work 200+ hours (Full time - cleaners not included) are multiplied by the cost of £30-33.  This gives all students and staff access to office for this one price, I assume the pricing for ILM would be available using this model as well?

I looked at Outlook Sync options and installed Powershell so I could do what was in the notes previously for the Live@Edu system and got a connection working, but without ILM I am right in saying unless Microsoft come out with a solution other than ILM we are looking at doing it all by hand/CSV files?

@Allan - How does/will BPOS/Office365 qualify for e-Rate or does it qualify for it? A detailed response will be very much appreciated.

After reading more about Office 365 I'm contemplating on migrating a private college over to this instead of Google since all they use is Office applications.  The thing is, they are a private college but are accredited and have an .edu address.  The thing is, they don't really need to give students access to stuff like their own email, etc.  It is a nice feature, but not sure if they really need to implement it.  I see it is $14/mo for educators to get all the features, but would it be best if they just went with the Small Business feature set because it is only $6/mo?

@Allen_MSFT: First of all thank you for answering all of these questions, your answers are reassuring to say the least!

Now for some questions. We currently use on campus Exchange and are going to add Sharepoint, and other features for our Employees (Faculty and Staff) and we are also using Live@edu for students only.

So my question is since we do not have any employees using Live@edu, will we need to pay for any of the current services we have? (Email, Skydrive, Office Web Apps, etc.), or will these continue to be free for all students without us taking any other action?

Also is it possible for us to purchase copies of Office 2010 for student systems? Will the $2 per student still be an option, and is this a onetime charge of $2, or $2 each month per student? We already have copies of Office 2010 for employees, so we would not need to enroll in any of the plans for our employees.

Thanks in advance!