Office 365 for education

We are currently planning a solution to integrate authentication via Windows Live ID into our application. As we are also on Live@Edu, it would allow users of our institute to login to our application and connect to Windows Live services using SSO while having a single email account.

But with Microsoft Online Services ID not taken in the Windows Live ID directory, does that mean we cannot integrate our app with Windows Live ID? We dont want our users to have two email accounts (one at Windows Live and other at Exchange). Is there any way around this?

In addition to my previous post, we also dont want users to go through sign up process with Windows Live once we issue them our custom domain IDs. Is there any solution available for this?

@Allen: Thanks for your reply Allen. I am afraid this would break our existing design. We have a mix of open and closed system, whereby our students (internal - on Live@Edu) and applicants (external) both sign in through Windows Live. Because of a different architecture of Office 365, how can I achieve this?

Also, can you point me to any documentation related to authentication architecture and technical details so that I can plan in advance? Because I still dont have access to beta, its making things difficult for me.

@Allen_MSFT Thanks for your reply and the information.

I think the features in 365 are great and if an institution wants to pay for these enhancements that's fine.  But it just seems plain wrong to mess with the basic features currently offered in live.edu.

You got all of these schools to adopt and implement this on the condition it was free.  All of these students and faculty started creating and saving documents in the cloud, collaboration between teachers and students blossoming.  And now unless they ante up for the faculty/teachers you are going to rip the office web apps from them?

$10 a month may not seem like a lot but in a large school district with say 1,500 teachers/staff, that district just went from paying 0 to $180,000 per year.

And the poor guy that championed the idea to adopt live@edu now looks like a chump.  

Signed,  

The Chump

@Allen_MSFT

Allen,

I am the technology director at a small K-12 public school district that I have taken down the Live@edu path. First, I want to say thank you to Microsoft for providing the free Windows Live/Live@edu/Outlook Live service that we currently have. Secondly, I am very concerned  that we may lose functionality or have to pay to keep the same level of functionality we currently have.

I have been happy with the Live@edu/Windows Live integration for my employees, which includes Windows Live Messenger, Skydrive, Skydrive based Office Web Apps (opposed to SharePoint based Office Web Apps), any other Windows Live ID based service. I currently have deployed the service to a very small set of students. I don't provide the services to many students as I could use more control on the student side of what they access. I see where Microsoft might be going with the SharePoint, Lync, etc based solution as it may allow more control, but I DO NOT want to lose access to the free IM, Skydrive, and integrated Windows Live ID for my staff that we currently have. It is great that you will be offering the SharePoint/Lync offering for free to students, but I have to be able to keep my staff using their free linked Windows Live ID based services. I can’t pay for something that I sold the school on having for free and I really  don't want to have all my staff signing up for separate Windows Live ID's that they manage themselves and that I lose control of in order to keep their current access to IM/Windows Live Messenger that we use for internal communication. For me and my school district, it looks like we may be going backward, not forward.

I would like to see Microsoft keep the link between Live@edu/Office365 for EDU/Windows Live ID and still allow synchronization and SSO (this is where ILM comes in) with on premise AD as Microsoft currently offers. According to a few FAQs and articles on the web that I have read about the new Office365 for Edu offering, it has been stated that the free offering will still include the free Windows Live services. I am hoping that is the case and that I could keep staff accounts linked to Windows Live ID and Windows Live Messenger and at the free A0 plan and then allow students (at a higher functionality, but still free, A2 Office365 plan) to use IM through Lync and have access to the SharePoint Office Web Apps. The best scenario for our small district would be for Microsoft to offer the A2 level for free to employees, but I don’t see this happening.

Overall, I have very mixed feelings as it almost feels like Microsoft is trying a bait and switch, especially if what you are saying about having to pay for what we are getting for free now once are contracts are up is true. I didn’t realize we had Live@edu contracts. At this point in time it seems that there is still a lot of uncertainty on the details both coming from Microsoft and from your current Live@edu users.  

I'm sorry if this sounds like a rant. I don't mean it to be, but am just sharing my very real concerns of where this looks like it may be going. Our funding is being continually cut so none of the paid Office 365 for Edu options look like much of a solution to me. If I don’t have a solution that works for my employees and students that is free, I may have to look at migrating to Google Apps and I don’t want to do that!

Please keep us updated on any further information or news you may have and please pass on the concerns we are sharing here with Live@edu/Office365 for Edu management.

Jared Pickerell

Technology Director

Troy Public Schools

@Jack and @Larry -- These were my concerns, as well, only you both stated them far more clearly than I did. Thank you for taking the time to express your thoughts--I couldn't agree more! I want to keep the Live ID integration/management!

This is a dark thread at the end of an enlightening set of user comments. In my political arena (K12) the first fear is that once we are committed to our communications paradigm existing in a MS-controlled cloud then we are at risk for down-stream cost increases. MS is right to go after profits in the small business sector with Office 365, as it is a sector that has been underserved by Exchange and Sharepoint services and it is for profit enterprise.

Microsoft is wrong to go after profits in public schools. Public education right now needs Office 365, students have also been underserved by Exchange and Sharepoint services, precisely because nobody will spend the money for them to become full members of the technical elite in our society. Microsoft's current model would allow students to collaborate with students free of charge (that's good for revolution). The model that is needed is one that allows students to collaborate with educators free of charge (that's good for evolution).

Any one who has spent time in the business world has been stung by the cost of a Microsoft upgrade, my first was Excel 2.o to 2.2 for 250 Macs, OMG!! (1987?) This behavior is typical for Microsoft, but it cannot be tolerated in public education. Office 365 is a "Java moment" for Microsoft, are they going to realize that giving it away to benefit public education will indeed gain a wide acceptance which will assure a future of business users in Excel, or will future business people be using an Open-Visicalc?

Will sharepoint, lync, and email be free for students? Will the "Ms office subscription" program (desktop) be free to students? Well we be forced to have a teacher license?

Any word on O365 for Education? Will there still be any such thing? When should we expect it? Why is it taking much longer? What makes it different from the ones for SMB/SME? Any academically-focuse SharePoint templates for education? What should we expect?

The enhancements for Live@edu are destined to fail. Most certainly the money Microsoft spends on establishing pay-per-user system can be allocated elsewhere with some results. Without substantial incentive and visible realistic and practical advantages who would be interested?

You can see by comments in this blog, not a single person said "I'll go for it"

Transitioning from free to paid service with edu institutions with constrained budget? You kidding me. Microsoft will not get a dime in revenue.

The amount of changes in existing system to even implement your new business model will never be approved by management as unnecessary.

Although you saying nothing will be different in existing free system, it is not so, this and its in my report to the board. And I know the decision already. While retaining present not changing services from Microsoft we will kindly declined your gracious offer for students. After all students are not the once making decisions..

We are presently running both live@edu and google apps for edu.

No doubt about the choice, google wins.

Instead of getting additional revenue Microsoft will be loosing existing customers (and revenue that comes with future generation).

I will bet my money on that

You are getting it all wrong. Live@edu essentially translates to Exchange Online in Office365, which remains free to faculty/staff and students and students get SharePoint Online and Lync Online for free as well. So there is nothing for academic institutions to pay for at that point. However, if these institutions want to add SharePoint Online and Lync Online for faculty/staff to use then they pay from $6 per faculty/staff per month. Keep in mind that for academic insitutions SharePoint Online will also come with academic-focused templates for student management system, etc, which I guess is what they may be currently working on.

Although this is the deal, which is better than anything Google has to offer, which is consumer grade at best but I myself would expect that MS should probably sweeten the deal with a less feature-rich form of Lync Online and a very minimal SharePoint Online storage space. This will enable the academic institutions get a taste and mover on to subscribe and unleash the full feature set of Lync Online and additional storage for SharePoint Online (Email/Calendaring, Messaging, Security, Collaboration/Document Management System (DMS), Learning Management System (LMS), Student Information System (SIS), CRM, etc all in one with ADFS/Single Sign-On) starting at same price and up based on storage and other needs. Office 365 is VERY powerful, it all depends on how MS leverages its power especially in the academic area.

At the moment, there are not much concrete details about Office 365 for education, which is understadably why many have nothing to say just yet. All we know are basic and possibly tentative details on the different prices and what comes free or not. What I will add is that we are all getting impatient and this may be causing people to try competitors even though they offer sub-par products/services. I hope MS delivers much more as I explained above to really bring it in the education arena.

You are getting it all wrong. Live@edu essentially translates to Exchange Online in Office365, which remains free to faculty/staff and students and students get SharePoint Online and Lync Online for free as well. So there is nothing for academic institutions to pay for at that point. However, if these institutions want to add SharePoint Online and Lync Online for faculty/staff to use then they pay from $6 per faculty/staff per month. Keep in mind that for academic insitutions SharePoint Online will also come with academic-focused templates for student management system, etc, which I guess is what they may be currently working on.

Although this is the deal, which is better than anything Google has to offer, which is consumer grade at best but I myself would expect that MS should probably sweeten the deal with a less feature-rich form of Lync Online and a very minimal SharePoint Online storage space. This will enable the academic institutions get a taste and mover on to subscribe and unleash the full feature set of Lync Online and additional storage for SharePoint Online (Email/Calendaring, Messaging, Security, Collaboration/Document Management System (DMS), Learning Management System (LMS), Student Information System (SIS), CRM, etc all in one with ADFS/Single Sign-On) starting at same price and up based on storage and other needs. Office 365 is VERY powerful, it all depends on how MS leverages its power especially in the academic area.

At the moment, there are not much concrete details about Office 365 for education, which is understadably why many have nothing to say just yet. All we know are basic and possibly tentative details on the different prices and what comes free or not. What I will add is that we are all getting impatient and this may be causing people to try competitors even though they offer sub-par products/services. I hope MS delivers much more as I explained above to really bring it in the education arena.