There a selection of ‘channels’ that
you can acquire a licence for Microsoft software products.
Depending on what sort of environment you wish to use the software,
that is to say your home environment or a work/business
environment, Microsoft provide a choice.
For home consumers, the popular choices
are either purchasing software with a new machine or in a
box. The Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) licence
supplied by the system builder provides adequate software and usage
rights that suit most households. The cost is attractive as
well and some businesses have seen this as a way to license their
computers. However, be aware that the use rights place
certain restrictions on how the software can be used, and provide a
nasty surprise for organisations looking to use OEM supplied
applications in a terminal services environment.
Retail/boxed product
licences provide easy-to-obtain software and licences, however this
generally means for each licence there is a box – and those boxes
will need to be stored. The use rights again vary in that
there is no downgrade right for applications, so generally
speaking, businesses only purchase limited use products through
this channel.
Businesses are provided
with a selection of agreements through which to acquire their
licences. These are referred to as volume licence agreements
and the most appropriate agreement for your organisation will be
dependent on how you use your software; the size of your
organisation; whether you wish to retain the right to upgrade to
any new releases as and when they become available; whether you
wish to ‘own’ the licences at the end of the agreement or just have
the rights to use it for a specific timeframe; whether
‘standardisation’ across your estate is important to you; and
whether you seek to enter into long term, or shorter term
‘contracts’. Nowadays there is also a requirement to decide
whether you wish the software to be ‘on’ or ‘off’ premise, as
Microsoft now offer ‘cloud’ services whereby they can, and will,
host the software for you.
“Pay-as-you-go” agreements are Open
License and Select Plus. As and when you need licences you
can purchase through these agreements and have the option to cover
the licences with software assurance. Open License is for
organisations with 5 or more PCs, whereas Select Plus would be more
suitable for larger (>250) organisations.
Open Value, and Open Value Subscription
agreements are for organisations that wish to standardise their
infrastructure and come with software assurance as
‘standard’. The subscription agreement only provides the
rights to use the software during the term of the agreement, so the
rules that apply when the agreement expires need to be clearly
understood.
Larger organisations that wish to
standardise their infrastructure have the option of entering into
an Enterprise Agreement, or an Enterprise Subscription
Agreement. These allow an organisation to license all
devices within its infrastructure with a standard set of licences.
An annual ‘true up’ process ensures all devices are licensed at
each anniversary. Again the subscription type agreement means
that when the agreement expires the rights to use the software are
lost, so full understanding of the consequences should be
understood.