Microsoft Licensing?

Discussion in 'General Microsoft Certifications' started by simongrahamuk, May 17, 2007.

  1. simongrahamuk
    Honorary Member

    simongrahamuk Hmmmmmmm?

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    I'm curious to know how those of you that deal with this in your organisation licence your kit.

    As we all know MS licensing is a mine field. Open, Select, Software Assurance, OEM, etc.

    What route has your Business / School / Other gone down?

    Currently at my school we have a Schools Agreement, which basically means we 'lease' the software from MS each year and are entitled to the latest versions of it. (let the contract lapse and you are expected to uninstall all the software.) Now this is all good and well, but I'm realising that we are paying out money over and over again each year when MS tends to only release new versions of sw every three - four years. Should we be looking at alternative licensing?
     
  2. Mr.Cheeks

    Mr.Cheeks 1st ever Gold Member! Gold Member

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    ...Yes
     
  3. Bluerinse
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    Bluerinse Exabyte Poster

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    I presume your schools agreement gives you a huge reduction in the initial costs and therefore the outlay is spread over years much like leasing equipment like photocopiers is. You would need to do a cost analysis and compare the two amounts in order to answer your question.
     
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  4. Sparky
    Highly Decorated Member Award 500 Likes Award

    Sparky Zettabyte Poster Moderator

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    Not sure what the pricing is for schools but some clients I support qualify for charity license agreements and it saves a fortune.
     
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  5. AJ

    AJ 01000001 01100100 01101101 01101001 01101110 Administrator

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    We're one the Schools agreement as well and it costs us something in the region of £20k+ per year. I think with all the stuff we use it is about £35/PC, that doesn't include Servers, Exchange, ISA, Visual Studio, training stuff etc
     
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  6. Modey

    Modey Terabyte Poster

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    We are on a Schools software assurance agreement here. I think it costs us about £12k a year at the moment. We own most of our server licences so we are effectively leasing the cals for server, exchange and also XP + Office licences. About 500 in total.

    In terms of the free upgrade benefits. I don't suppose we are taking advantage of that at the moment. We are now entitled to use 500 Vista BE and 500 Office 2007 Pro licences and we don't intend to roll either out for a good while as XP + Office 2k3 are working fine and dandy at the moment.
     
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  7. Bluerinse
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    Bluerinse Exabyte Poster

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    Yes, exactly, so what is the point in upgrading? :blink
     
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  8. Modey

    Modey Terabyte Poster

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    Our licence atutomatically gives us software upgrades, it's not something we specifically asked for. It also happens to be the most economical solution for us at the moment (despite the fact we aren't taking advantage of the upgrades).
     
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  9. simongrahamuk
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    simongrahamuk Hmmmmmmm?

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    That is what I raised the question for.

    XP and office 2003 here, all working well, no plans to upgrade in the near future.

    Would it be economical to buy outright the licences for what we have and pay nothing more until we want to upgrade, or continue to pay out year on year when we're not necessairlly going to upgrade?

    Sod it, we're going open source! no more headaches! - I wish! :biggrin
     
  10. Modey

    Modey Terabyte Poster

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    Having dome some quick comparisons a few months ago I think we worked out that it wouldn't really be economical for us. It would cost us a great deal of money up front (that we would have been paying over a number of years via leasing). Although we aren't using Vista and 2007 now, I think we almost certainly will be in the next 3 years. So if we bought our XP and O2k3 licences outright now, we'd have to buy them again when we decided to go with Vista + o2k7.
     
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  11. simongrahamuk
    Honorary Member

    simongrahamuk Hmmmmmmm?

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    Thing is though Modey that if you buy a desktop licence and an office licence outright they are for the latest version of the product available at the time, and are backwards compatible.

    So If I were to buy desktop licences I'd be buying them for Vista, but eligable to run XP.

    At least thats how I understand the whole licensing thing. Like I said though, its a mine field!
     
  12. AJ

    AJ 01000001 01100100 01101101 01101001 01101110 Administrator

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    If I remember rightly the Schools Agreement is for upgrades only. So when you buy a new PC you've still got to have an OS on it then use the upgrade to bring it in line with the rest of the school.
     
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  13. simongrahamuk
    Honorary Member

    simongrahamuk Hmmmmmmm?

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    Correct. But usually when you purchase new PC's from suppliers they as what OS you want. With the School Agreement I usually just say XP Home and then upgrade.

    Had I said XP PRO rather than home it usually costs about £15 more per PC, but I'd already have a licence for the pro version, meaning no need to buy extra licences until I wanted to upgrade. unlike the School Agreement where you are constantly paying out.

    :blink
     
  14. simongrahamuk
    Honorary Member

    simongrahamuk Hmmmmmmm?

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    This is doing my head in and all because the financial manager dislikes paying out year on year for something that she can't physically see! :dry

    She'll see the inside of the prison cell when we end up unlicenced. :dry

    I have everything documented! :twisted:
     
  15. BosonMichael
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    BosonMichael Yottabyte Poster

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    In my previous job at TOA, we purchased the OS and Office licenses with the computer because we got a good deal from Dell, and we never upgraded the software. When the PC was 4 (or on some occasions, 5) years old, we retired it and purchased a new PC with new licenses.
     
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