Student Advantage–the best way to get Office for student BYOD devices?

Last month we announced Student Advantage, a new benefit to qualifying institutions that brings Microsoft Office to more students worldwide. This is a global programme that most Australian education institutions will already qualify for. And for Australian schools, universities and TAFEs, it comes at a perfect time, when there are more BYOD initiatives than ever.

From the beginning of December, institutions that license Office 365 ProPlus or Office Professional Plus for all staff can provide access to Office 365 ProPlus for students (on their personally-owned or institution-owned devices) at no additional cost.

Office 365 ProPlus includes all the familiar and full Office applications — locally installed on up to five devices and available offline. When a school combines Student Advantage with Microsoft’s other cloud services, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Lync Online, all available at no cost through Office 365 Education, students have access to the same set of gold-standard productivity tools and services used by businesses and 110 million students and staff all over the world.

Anthony Salcito, Microsoft president of Worldwide Public Sector Education said:

  “Students use Office every day for school work and activities that are most important to them. Office not only helps students stay organised and get their work done today but at the same time develops skills that will be required when they enter the work force... We are thrilled to offer Student Advantage to schools across the globe so students have access to the latest, most up-to-date version of the world’s leading set of productivity tools in order to give them a competitive advantage when entering the workforce.”  

Worldwide nearly 98 percent of students using productivity software currently use Office. Student Advantage enables students to access the familiar experience of Office in an always-up-to-date cloud service across their compatible PCs, tablets and phones. 

Customers can get Started with Office 365 for Education now using the free A2 option (which gives staff and students access to Exchange and SharePoint online, as well as Office Web Apps) – and then add the full Office 365 ProPlus suite over the holidays. And because the software is being delivered through Office 365, students will be able to go online to get Office ProPlus installed on their devices – not just PCs, but also Macs and their smartphones (the installation web page will show them the right options for whichever device they are logged in from).

Microsoft partners (such as Authorised Education Resellers) can access Partner Sales Guidance and FAQ on the Microsoft Education Partner Community (login required).

Read the original press release