Licensing Made Simple -- Right!
You don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand Microsoft licensing; you
just have to be a Harvard MBA and an MIT Ph.D. in statistics!
Let me tell you, this stuff is complicated. I studied the subject for weeks
with the help of gurus like Scott
Braden, now a Redmondmag.com columnist. I then wrote two large articles
dissecting licensing and discussing negotiation ("SA
Exposed" and "Negotiating
with Microsoft"), but I'm still confused in many ways.
Microsoft is trying to simplify licensing, not by actually simplifying the
licensing, but by improving
tools to help customers makes choices, including the Microsoft Product Licensing
Advisor and the Forrester ROI tool.
Here's a bit of free advice for you: Take the Forrester ROI analyzer with
a huge pile of salt. If you use it, or have a salesperson try to run you through
it, make sure you build in negative assumptions along with all the positive
ones.
Posted by Doug Barney on February 26, 2007