CU Software Licensing Services

Microsoft Desktop Bundle Campus Agreement: Microsoft Office and Windows OS Upgrades are Free to Cornell Faculty & Staff

As of July 1, 2009, the Microsoft Desktop Bundle Campus Agreement (MSDB) replaces and expands Cornell’s former campus agreement that covered only Microsoft Office. This agreement runs for three years.

Under MSDB, all university-owned faculty and staff computers on the Ithaca campus are authorized to use Microsoft Office and upgrade any version of the Windows operating system at no charge, including Macintosh computers.

Chief benefits for Cornell departments and units:

• Departments no longer need to track licenses for individual computers to ensure compliance with software licensing, which is no trivial effort.
• The cost of buying new computers goes down, since computers can be purchased with the least expensive version of the Windows operating system (OS) and then upgraded at no cost if necessary. Dell systems purchased through Cornell’s Dell agreement will still come with the image the bundle committee specifies, but Cornell will be charged only for the basic OS, saving about $40 per computer. Cornell departments purchased more than 4,500 Windows systems in FY09.
• Including OS upgrades in the new agreement means cost will no longer be a limiting factor in a department’s ability to upgrade. With the previous agreement, the price of upgrading one computer from XP to Vista was roughly $40.
• The Windows OS can be installed, not just upgraded, on Macintosh computers in a dual boot configuration at no cost—a significant savings.

Eligibility

This agreement does not include Weill Cornell Medical College or its affiliate organizations. It also excludes Cornell Cooperative Extension staff who are not Cornell employees or who do not use university-owned computers.

Office for Work-at-Home Purposes

An additional installation to a personally owned computer for Work-at-Home use is permitted under the agreement, but software installed under the agreement must be removed if your affiliation with Cornell ends. Students are not eligible to use Office under this agreement unless it is installed on a Cornell-owned computer.

Get Microsoft Office or Windows for PC or Mac

To obtain Microsoft Office or Windows for work use, please contact your department’s technical support provider. If you do not have a technical support provider, please email cit@cornell.edu, using one of the following Subject lines:

• Request MS Office (insert edition & version) for Work
• Request MS Windows (insert edition & version) for Work
• Request MS Windows for Legacy PCs for Work
  
• Request MS Office (insert edition & version) for Work-At-Home
• Request MS Office (insert edition & version) for Work & Work-At-Home

Office for Work-At-Home purposes is based on 100% use for work.

Office Home Use Program ($9.95) provides Office for work-at-home and personal use for faculty/staff at Cornell. For instructions on how to purchase, send an email to cit@cornell.edu with a Subject Header of:

• Request MS Office for Purchase Under the Home Use Program

Included in the Microsoft Desktop Bundle

The Microsoft Desktop Bundle contains three major components:

• Microsoft Office
• Windows OS Upgrades
• CORE CALs

Microsoft Office

This portion authorizes any version of Microsoft Office to be installed on any university-owned faculty or staff computer (Windows and Macintosh) at no cost.

Windows OS Upgrades

The Microsoft Desktop Bundle includes all Windows OS upgrades and any OS version. During the three-year agreement, any faculty or staff computer can be upgraded to any version of Windows OS at no cost. For example:

• Upgrade XP to Vista.
• Upgrade to Windows 7 when it is released.
• Take advantage of a Macintosh computer’s dual boot capability and install any version of Windows OS without having to purchase a copy of it.

CORE CALs

The CORE Client Access Licenses (CALs) are MS Windows Server CAL, MS Exchange CAL, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) CAL, and SharePoint CAL. Departments or units that use these services are covered by this licensing.

• The MS Windows Server and Exchange CALs are required for the Microsoft Exchange email and calendar services, which will be available to faculty and staff by September 2009.
• The SCCM CAL is required for Microsoft’s Desktop Management solution. At this time Cornell is exploring a managed desktop solution for campus, but it is too early to know whether SCCM would be the solution.
• The SharePoint CAL is required for SharePoint, Microsoft’s collaboration toolset.

If there are any questions or concerns, please contact me directly (cej4@cornell.edu or 255-3016).

*Cornell will continue to provide other Microsoft products at a discounted rate for work purposes to faculty and staff at Cornell and affiliate locations through the Microsoft Select program.

Training will be provided to help users get to know the new and different look and feel of Office 2007 compared to previous versions. A good example is that there is no longer the traditional menu bar at the top. Instead, a series of tabbed toolbars and large buttons are used to navigate the programs.

Currently, CIT Training & Documentation offers a free Office 2007 Getting Started workshop. An additional mixture of fee based and free workshops for the entire suite will be available after the site license implementation on July 1, 2008. All training provided by CIT Training and Documentation is available for registration online at <http://www.cornell.veplan.net>. If you have additional questions about training please email <workshop-info@cornell.edu>.