Someone explain Office 2013 license management for small business?

[nicedreams]

Been having more and more clients moving to Office 2013.  They purchase the license key cards from the store and then have any employee install it.  This means they installed it under their personal email account and causing issues.  Also with larger businesses of like 20 employees, I can only register and track 5 Office 2013 licenses per 1 email account which having multiple emails accounts to track an install is getting hard.

 

I know I'm completely missing the new way of how to manage Office 2013 and looking for some help since everything I search for just points me to get Office 365 which doesn't help.

 

Largest issue I have is getting these older business people that are so used to purchasing a disk for install and now having to convince them to pay monthly.  I'm hoping this is not the entire case.

 

I have two businesses right now that I don't know what to do and asking for suggestions on this also...

 

1) Right now if I had to purchase 10 MS Office 2013 licenses for a client, what is the best way to do this?  Do we have to go with the Office 365 monthly package the gives you the desktop software also?  Doesn't that mean I have to sign up for their hosted email?  They have already purchased 7 other MS Office 2013 key cards that are installed and already used.  Any way to migrate to a better management or are they screwed?

 

2) New client wants email and file server and was thinking of getting the new Windows Essentials server and linking it to either Office 365 or Hosted Exchange.  Looks like on the most expensive Office 365 will do active director integration and all of the hosted Exchange plans will integrate with the Essentials server and looks like Server 2012 R2 also.

Of course running into issue of they just purchased 5 MS Office 2013 licenses, but want to do the hosted Exchange with the desktop version of the software also.

 

So biggest question of this #2 is if they go to hosted Exchange with the desktop versions of office included, did they pretty much waste their money on the Office 2013 cards they bought last month and are currently using?

 

 

Microsoft made this hard for small business support.  I understand larger businesses might have the budget to lose money only to gain later from better management, but small business doesn't have that ability.

 

 

[Hum]

Maybe some help here:

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2915745

[Praetor]

Been having more and more clients moving to Office 2013.  They purchase the license key cards from the store and then have any employee install it.  This means they installed it under their personal email account and causing issues.  Also with larger businesses of like 20 employees, I can only register and track 5 Office 2013 licenses per 1 email account which having multiple emails accounts to track an install is getting hard.

 

Your problems started here: Office 2013 with a license key card is only meant to very small business, that's why there's the email license limit; you are better served with Office 365 where you can control the expenses (it's a fixed expense so it's more manageable during the times and it's predictable as well) or with a VLK / Software Assurance. Also a VLK key isn't that expensive (considering the overall price, upgrade path and all); you might even check with a MS partner the eOpen licenses as well.

 

 

Microsoft made this hard for small business support.  I understand larger businesses might have the budget to lose money only to gain later from better management, but small business doesn't have that ability.

 

couldn't agree more; the licensing of Office 2013 is a mess from the ground; lack of formation for the MS partners and is really pushing costumers into Office 365.

[nicedreams]

So if I have companies that have already purchased MS Office 2013 key cards, they are pretty much screwed and need to move on to the monthly pricing to manage it all?  Or will have to manage the key cards and just going further make them go the monthly fee route?