3 ms·

Microsoft licensing is so incredibly complex, that I would not be surprised in the least bit if one study resulted in a 17MM quote and another in a 34MM quote.

Microsoft licensing is so incredibly complex, that I would not be surprised in the least bit if one study resulted in a 17MM quote and another in a 34MM quote. I recently did a licensing cost estimation for a SQL Server 2012 cluster, and my numbers were an order of magnitude different from that of my colleague's.

_pmf_ 14y ago
In that order of magnitude, the concrete conditions are probably subject to negotiation.
jpkeisala 14y ago
I recently found out that every workstation in AD needs extra license called CAL, so if you add Windows to AD or even into a shared printer you need to pay for CAL that is yearly fee. Really annoying and confusing.
- emeidi 14y ago
  That's common knowledge, isn't it?
- amalag 14y ago
  I gotta hope Samba 4 makes big progress, if nothing than to force Microsoft to be more competitive with their stupid licensing.
UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
Even Microsoft's own "experts" give you confusing and contradictory information about licensing (and their licence resellers are far worse). Sometimes I wonder if they do this just so that every "audit" generates fines? Even for companies TRYING to do everything above board it is a complex, expensive, process. I'm STILL trying to get a direct answer on how the anti-virus ("Windows Defender") in Windows 8 is licensed. MSE (Win 7/Vista) has a 10 licence limit (for businesses). I've asked Microsoft people and they cannot answer...
Spooky23 14y ago
It is complex, but it's easy to game the costs to make Microsoft look more expensive than it actually is. If you look at list pricing or in the US (I imagine Germany has something similar) government pricing, you can spec everything with the highest cost "Select" pricing, (which is fixed cost) or other schemes which will be higher. If you compute the cost over 5 years and want Microsoft to look bad, you spec things with non-transferrable OEM pricing for servers and other products. You buy Windows server in the "Standard" edition and use VMware. If you want Microsoft to look "good", you spec the pricing based on 3 year enterprise agreements with platform discounts. (Platform discounts are incentives to license Windows, Core CAL and Office together). With an enterprise agreement, you amortize the license cost over 3 years, and pay only maintenance year 4 and 5 (typically 20-25% of the initial annual cost), so you can make the Microsoft TCO much better. On the server side, you buy Windows Datacenter and System Center, and use Hyper-V. Both approaches are truthful, but will yield vastly different results and will be accurate if you follow through. The tough part about Linux/OSS vs Microsoft, especially for user-facing stuff, is that many of the costs are people costs, and can be harder to predict.

_pmf_ 14y ago

In that order of magnitude, the concrete conditions are probably subject to negotiation.

jpkeisala 14y ago

I recently found out that every workstation in AD needs extra license called CAL, so if you add Windows to AD or even into a shared printer you need to pay for CAL that is yearly fee. Really annoying and confusing.

emeidi 14y ago
That's common knowledge, isn't it?
amalag 14y ago
I gotta hope Samba 4 makes big progress, if nothing than to force Microsoft to be more competitive with their stupid licensing.

UnoriginalGuy 14y ago

Even Microsoft's own "experts" give you confusing and contradictory information about licensing (and their licence resellers are far worse). Sometimes I wonder if they do this just so that every "audit" generates fines? Even for companies TRYING to do everything above board it is a complex, expensive, process. I'm STILL trying to get a direct answer on how the anti-virus ("Windows Defender") in Windows 8 is licensed. MSE (Win 7/Vista) has a 10 licence limit (for businesses). I've asked Microsoft people and they cannot answer...

Spooky23 14y ago

It is complex, but it's easy to game the costs to make Microsoft look more expensive than it actually is. If you look at list pricing or in the US (I imagine Germany has something similar) government pricing, you can spec everything with the highest cost "Select" pricing, (which is fixed cost) or other schemes which will be higher. If you compute the cost over 5 years and want Microsoft to look bad, you spec things with non-transferrable OEM pricing for servers and other products. You buy Windows server in the "Standard" edition and use VMware. If you want Microsoft to look "good", you spec the pricing based on 3 year enterprise agreements with platform discounts. (Platform discounts are incentives to license Windows, Core CAL and Office together). With an enterprise agreement, you amortize the license cost over 3 years, and pay only maintenance year 4 and 5 (typically 20-25% of the initial annual cost), so you can make the Microsoft TCO much better. On the server side, you buy Windows Datacenter and System Center, and use Hyper-V. Both approaches are truthful, but will yield vastly different results and will be accurate if you follow through. The tough part about Linux/OSS vs Microsoft, especially for user-facing stuff, is that many of the costs are people costs, and can be harder to predict.