Companies that have long relationships with Microsoft know that the company’s form licensing agreements have steadily evolved over time, and typically for the worse. If software licensing can be said to have any “natural laws,” certainly the First Law could be paraphrased to something like: “If you agree to an inch, be prepared to give…
Microsoft is in the process of transitioning many of its volume-licensing customers from the Select Plus Agreement to the new Microsoft Products and Services Agreement (MPSA). (More information on the transition framework is available here.) A notable difference between the Select Plus Agreement and the MPSA is that the MPSA is self-contained and is not…
In the past, business consumers of Microsoft’s products and services have needed to reference at least two documents – the Product List and the Product Use Rights – to help determine the purchasing requirements and licensing rules applicable to those products and services. Both documents were incorporated by reference into Microsoft’s volume licensing agreements and…
The Services Provider License Agreement (SPLA) is Microsoft’s preferred licensing option for businesses wanting to use Microsoft products in support of hosted software solutions made available to end users over the Internet. For many companies, SPLA is a good fit, in that it incorporates a monthly reporting mechanism, rather than an up-front license purchase, and…
Most businesses seeking to license Microsoft software for the purpose of delivering hosted software solutions over the Internet turn first to the company’s Services Provider License Agreement (SPLA). SPLA is Microsoft’s flagship licensing model for commercial hosting services, and it offers the primary benefit of permitting a licensed hosting company to pay on a month-to-month…
Microsoft Enterprise Agreements may represent attractive licensing options for larger companies with dynamic IT environments for which steady growth can be projected over a three-year term. However, smaller or mid-size companies with relatively static IT environments may experience more burdens than benefits under an EA, with increased costs and audit risks being significant disadvantages to…
Companies licensing Microsoft software under Enterprise Agreements (EAs) likely have familiarity with the default requirement to true up EA Enterprise Products based on any increase either in the number of “Qualified Devices” (generally, workstations capable of running or accessing the licensed Microsoft products) or in the number of “Qualified Users” (employees who use Qualified Devices)….
Many online service providers are well aware that Microsoft’s Services Provider License Agreement (SPLA) entails a licensing framework that can be difficult to manage. SPLA may be a great model for businesses seeking to “float” their license expenditures from month to month based on usage. However, what Microsoft considers “usage” and what most companies and…
Microsoft’s MSDN subscription licenses often create license compliance problems. These problems arise because it is extremely easy to over deploy Microsoft software using MSDN media because it includes a vast array of Microsoft products with limited deployment controls. In addition, the licensing rules related to MSDN are often misunderstood. One often overlooked aspect of Microsoft…
In any software audit, there are two over-arching categories of information that must be collected: data regarding what products are deployed on a business’ computers and records demonstrating the licenses that the business has acquired to use those products. With regard to the entitlements, some kinds of licenses often are relatively easy to document. For…
