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Category: Microsoft Licensing Tip

Office 365 for Consumers: What You Need to Know

Although Microsoft Office 365 for businesses isn’t out until later this month – the consumer version – Home Premium – is available now. How does that affect your business? Well, any employee who has Home Premium (which includes Outlook and Access), and uses a computer with this version installed, that connects to corporate email or databases, is misusing the license. The Home Premium license does not cover these instances. Specifically, it says” Only one person at a time may use […]

Software Assurance Tip #3

There is no truth to the rumor that terminating an Enterprise Agreement and/or dropping Software Assurance results in a Microsoft audit. It does, however, spotlight the company in the eyes of the rep who will have likely lost a considerable amount of compensation because of it. Humans are humans, after all, and perhaps an internal flag is waved resulting in an audit. It’s a big “maybe,” but it looms large. What’s more, the replacement rep will have the record of […]

Software Assurance Tip #1

Software Assurance is typically thought of as the ability to upgrade. This is true, but it’s definitely not the whole story. Microsoft continues to evolve Software Assurance. Among the more famous examples: a) Desktop virtualization for which a Virtual Desktop Access license is not required if the Desktop O/S is covered by Software Assurance; and, b) SQL Server “trade-in” wherein Software Assurance-covered licenses of SQL Server 2008 R2 are exchanged for the equivalent number of SQL Server 2012 licenses (which […]

Client Access Licenses (CAL): 2 Important Changes in Microsoft Pricing Structure

Effective December 1, 2012, Microsoft will make two (2) important changes to its pricing structure for Client Access Licenses (CALs). First, the price is increasing by 15% for User CALs. Second, the price is increasing by 15% for User CALs – only! User CALs are assigned to a person or process and authorize access to the server software to which they are associated regardless of the number of devices that person or process utilizes. Device CALs are assigned to a […]

Microsoft Software Assurance and Microsoft

There is little that can be discussed about Microsoft software licensing without mentioning Software Assurance. And, of course, this applies to virtualization rights. In citing two of the examples above, we now explore Microsoft continues to evolve Software Assurance. In order to permit the primary user of a licensed instance of Windows Desktop to access that instance remotely – such as a from a kiosk, a rented device, or a personal device (i.e., tablets, smartphones) – the device must be […]

SQL Server Virtualization

In addition to Per Core licensing, replacing Per Processor licensing, SQL Server 2012 also introduced new virtualization rights. For SQL Server Standard Edition, the only method of licensing virtual machines is by licensing each individual virtual core (up to the 64-core technical maximum). For the new SQL Server Enterprise Edition – Microsoft’s top-of-the-line database software (replacing Datacenter Edition) – allows for the number of virtual instances equal to number of licensed cores. Thus, a dual-CPU, quad-core server – that is, […]

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