Microsoft Announces Updated System Management Tools for Education Customers

This week Microsoft unveiled a new version of Windows 10 that has been streamlined for security and superior performance according to the Redmond company.

At a launch event in NYC yesterday, Microsoft unveiled new hardware, software, and services taking direct aim at bolstering their current educational offerings inside classrooms and schools.

For IT Pros and System Administrators, two key services were discussed that will allow great flexibility in preparing Windows 10 PCs for use in the classroom and for their overall management.

Intune for Education has been in preview since this past January and is now considered generally available according to the Microsoft representatives I talked with in NYC about the service following the the #MicrosoftEDU keynote.

Intune for Education is a subset of the companies larger Intune management dashboard and it is designed to help with the control and monitoring of systems used by students and educators. It maximizes control over shared devices so that each user has a personalized experience while maximizing your hardware investment.

A subscription to Intune for Education gives you access if necessary to the full Intune management dashboard and its capabilities. This access is necessary for managing iOS and Android devices in your school because Intune for Education can only manage Windows 10 devices directly.

There are two options for getting Intune for Education (PDF direct download):

--  If you have budget this year only, buy Intune for Education per  device. Priced at $30, this is a one-time expense with no annual fee and no limit to the number of users on the licensed device. 

-- If you have an annual budget, subscribe to Intune for Education per user. Priced at $8.28 per year with student use benefit, which means students at no cost with 100% staff and faculty coverage. 

Microsoft also provided a quick demo of the previously released Set Up School PCs app that allows you to create a USB drive that can then be pre-configured with your organizations provisioning information so that students can quickly get up and running on the device(s) they use in the classroom.

Instead of pushing a cart around to various classrooms and collecting devices to be configured/setup, you just take this USB flash drive with you directly to the device where it is used at and get it ready to go.

You can read more about all of Microsoft's education related tools and services that are available for your district's immediate use.

But, wait...there's probably more so be sure to follow me on Twitter and Google+.

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