Hersing Corporation Improves IT Management and Saves Money on Future Licensing and IT Costs by Switching from Google Apps to Office 365

Hersing Corporation, a Singapore-based real estate services firm, needed to standardize its IT communications assets as multiple technologies proved difficult to manage for the firm’s 5,000 employees and agents across South East Asia. That’s when Hersing took advantage of the flexibility of Microsoft licensing to migrate to a single cloud platform via Office 365. As a result of the change, Hersing Corp. is saving an estimated $300,000, including $100,000 from infrastructure savings and the remaining $200,000 in licensing and administration costs.

It’s good practice to periodically double-check principles upon which you build subsequent plans.  Ensuring an accurate compass reading is essential; off by just one degree and you’re way off the mark later in your travels.  To help you find your way, in addition to the information on Microsoft volume licensing available via this blog, our Twitter account and website, we’ve put together a few booklets on the basics of Microsoft volume licensing. These materials will be of most interest to procurement and IT staff in a new role or someone looking to ensure they have a solid grasp of licensing basics. 

They are a great complement to the content presented through our licensing Training and Accreditation courses as well as the Get Licensing Ready curriculum (additional details below). 

Volume Licensing agreements are a cost-effective and flexible way to acquire the latest Microsoft products and services for emerging IT options and changing workforce requirements, help standardize IT, and simplify license management. Wherever possible Microsoft works to continue to drive additional value into volume licensing programs as well as simplify terms and conditions which govern them. 

For instance, we have updated the Enterprise Agreement so customers can add enterprise subscription agreements into a single company agreement, and we’ve also made progress simplifying the language of the Product Use Rights document.  Still, we know licensing is a multifaceted and sometimes nuanced discipline which ideally needs a continual refresh of knowledge by those who procure, maintain, and monitor software license use and compliance, raising the question: who should be on your volume licensing dream team?

Today Microsoft and the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) announced a three-year Joint Enterprise Licensing Agreement (JELA) for Microsoft enterprise licensing and Software Assurance.  According to the press release, the agreement will “modernize technology infrastructure, reduce costs and foster new levels of cross-agency collaboration” within the U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force and Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA).

The JELA is one of the most comprehensive Enterprise licensing agreements (ELAs) that Microsoft has ever created for the DoD, covering nearly 75 percent of all DoD personnel.  Spanning the Army, Air Force, and DISA, it provides significant potential cost savings through economies of scale, while
delivering access to the latest Microsoft technology.  The ability to standardize on the newest Microsoft products, such as Office 2013, SharePoint 2013 and Windows 8 has the potential to unlock new levels of cross-agency collaboration.   

Are you curious about Microsoft volume licensing definitions, Software Assurance, Microsoft Financing, the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) phenomenon or what our partners have to say? 2012’s five most buzzworthy tweets from our Twitter handle, @Msft_VL, contained content on these topics, in both written and video formats. Each of these tweets reached a high number of total Twitter users via retweets from highly followed people. We’ve included a round-up below, with tweets slightly edited for easy reading.