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Ask The Expert:
Microsoft Offers Different Licensing Options.
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What's the Difference Between Them?
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by Chris Pavnica
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Microsoft offers
many types of licensing with benefits based on the type
you purchase. Let's cover some of the options, the benefits
they provide, and some misconceptions regarding usage of
the licenses.
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The licensing options that are
available for the small/medium business market (SMB) are OEM, retail
packages, and volume license programs. The first type of license,
and most common, is the OEM license. This license is only available
with the purchase of new hardware (i.e. a new PC or server). You
order the hardware along with the software or applications pre-installed
from the manufacturer. This is a good option ONLY
if your company upgrades software when they purchase new hardware.
The biggest misconception with this type of license is these licenses
are transferable to machines other than the one with which it was
purchased with. This is NOT true.
The license is only good for this one machine and one machine only.
The second type of license, and
easiest to purchase, is a retail package. These licenses come in
a box with a CD and basic documentation of the product. You can
find this type at almost any retail store that sells electronics.
A misunderstanding that people have regarding this type of product
is that you have downgrading rights to previous versions of this
product. According to Microsoft's End User License Agreement (EULA)
included with the product, the license that you purchased is only
good for the version that is in the box you purchased.
The third type of license, which
can be considered a hidden treasure to a small business, would be
Microsoft's Open License. This program has many benefits based on
the plan that you choose. There are three major-- yet little known
plans -- that can be very beneficial to you and your pocket book:
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Open Business. While this plan is the
cheapest, it has the least amount of benefits. It is very
similar to the retail option mentioned above -- but you order
the number of licenses you need at a discount from retail pricing.
The only benefit to Open Business is that you don't have to
save all of those retail packages to prove you purchased the
licenses.
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Open Value. This plan offers an additional
program called Software Assurance. Software Assurance is a comprehensive
maintenance offering that helps you get the most out of your
software investment. It comes with benefits such as free upgrades
throughout the length of the agreement, e-training, additional
training vouchers for end users, home use rights of the software,
and much more (Look for my next article covering Microsoft
Software Assurance).
With Open Value, you can also purchase licenses that are called
'Core CALs'. These are an all inclusive license for your PCs.
It includes the operating system (i.e. Windows XP Professional
or Windows Vista Business) Office 2007 Small Business Edition
(i.e. Word, Excel, Outlook, and Power Point), and the server
license for network connectivity. The most noticeable up-front
benefit is an average of a 28% discount on the purchase price.
Another nice benefit to Open Value is that you don't have to
pay the full price all at once. You can spread the cost over
three years.
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The third, and newest plan, to Microsoft
Open Licensing is an Open Value Subscription. This plan is a
leasing option for Microsoft products. As a three-year lease,
it comes with Software Assurance and includes all of the benefits
of the regular Open Value plan. Microsoft's initial findings show
that 92% of companies enrolling in the introductory program
liked it so much that they renewed their subscription after
the initial three-year agreement. Also, if you have current
licenses or are one previous version behind the current version,
you are eligible for a 50% discount on the first year of the
agreement.
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A comparison of the Microsoft Open License plans
is as follows (example was done using pricing for 5 Microsoft Office
licenses):
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For more information on the different licensing
offered by Microsoft and how it can benefit your business, contact
me at 630-379-0330 or email chrisp@cssworks.com.
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