back to article NHS Wales flings £39m at Microsoft for Office 365 and Windows 10

The Welsh, it seems, just cannot get enough of Microsoft as 100,000 NHS staff across the country are set to receive a bucketload of the company's productivity wares. The deal comes hot on the heels of a £1.2m deal to see 1,521 "maintained" schools in the region getting their sticky fingers on Office 365 ProPlus. While nearly …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    Good consultancy work

    I've been helping them setup Data Leek Prevention in Office 365

    1. AndrueC Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: Good consultancy work

      That'll be a turnip for the books then :)

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    'Productivity wares'?

    'are set to receive a bucketload of the company's productivity wares.'

    Citation needed on that one!

    1. MrMerrymaker

      Re: 'Productivity wares'?

      Citation indeed. Like without a reference I trust, I'm going to believe Microsoft offer "productivity"

  3. QueBall

    Regular gov pricing is £48.90 /mo

    So lets assume the user count is exactly 100,000 and not some more exact number.

    At the published government pricing for Microsoft 365 e5 it would be £48.90 * 100,000 * 12= £58.68m

    The deal is £39m so saving a bit under £20m

    So they are getting a 33% discount and the government list pricing is already discounted from commercial business prices.

    Government published pricing for Microsoft 365 E5:

    https://www.digitalmarketplace.service.gov.uk/g-cloud/services/928689670081024

    Microsoft has usually given a massive discount for educational use so that deal wouldn't make a fair comparison. They want those little workers to be trained only knowing how to use Microsoft software and not learning anything else.

    1. Sulky

      Re: Regular gov pricing is £48.90 /mo

      If the wording can be believed they are getting a far bigger discount than that, "The price of the Microsoft deal has been set at £39m and will run for three years from 1 July 2019." £13m pa Vs £58.68m

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A pity that pure-play cloud solutions are not faring better in schools.

    In the NHS it is all understandable, but a pity they are not going more cloud-based.

  5. steviebuk Silver badge

    They should of gone

    Infrastructure Free.

    :) I jest. But better move than shit GSuite. Tell Microsoft you're thinking of moving to them and they throw in the migration for free. Shame the place I worked at ignored that, and ignored that 365 was cheaper than GSuite. Now they are stuck with GShite and still require some Office licenses for certain departments. What a fuck up that has been.

    1. Andy Denton

      Re: They should of gone

      Should *HAVE*

      1. steviebuk Silver badge

        Re: They should of gone

        It's a London fing, innit.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: They should of gone

        >Should *HAVE*

        * should've *

  6. 0laf
    Mushroom

    Well unless the NHS was moving away from MS Office buying 365 was pretty inevitable since MS don't really allow you to do anything else. I know one organisation that tried to do Office 2019 on-prem and MS make the whole thing so onerous that they gave up and went 365.

    We're all waiting for the screaming to start when the introductory pricing evaporates and the bait and switch is unveiled.

  7. cynicist365
    Joke

    Definition of Microsoft

    For a definition of Microsoft, ask Bill Gates’ wife.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I must strongly object ..

    .. to calling any Microsoft provided software productivity ware.

    That's just wrong.

    1. NetBlackOps

      Re: I must strongly object ..

      Powerpoint: Destroying productivity one (l)user at a time.

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