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1. 

   Evan Karp
   Virtual Computer

   Reputation:73

    

   [Admin Note: This is an archived thread from the old Virtual Computer Forums.]

   Thanks once again for all of the recent forum participation. This week's topic of the week is Microsoft Volume Licensing. Do you have it? If so, what flavor? What about Software Assurance?

   If you don't have it, would you buy it in order to use a product like ours?

   Quick and simple responses will be given equal weighting to more detailed responses for prize purposes, so this is a great one to jump in on if you haven't commented in the past. ;-)

   [Admin Note: Originally posted by Doug]

   Post a reply        Posted 2 years ago #
2. 

   Evan Karp
   Virtual Computer

   Reputation:73

    

   Hmm, licensing is one area that I try to stay out of as it tends to make my brain hurt. However, for clarification the licensing aspect should only come into play when a person is given more than one machine to run on their NxTop correct? If I have a notebook the odds are that I had to purchase a license with it in the first place. Placing the NxTop hypervisor on the machine and then loading a single virtual machine should still keep things legal, shouldn't it?

   Granted I really do need to schedule a call with our Microsoft rep to understand our licensing options better. We are not under any volume licensing agreement with regards to the OS or Office. We investigated switching to this model and while it could make sense the simple fact is that it would be too great a leap for our model with little reward. Our problem is primarily influenced by our vendors who do not support IE7 for example and therefore make the operation of Vista nearly impossible (and the others that simply do not support Vista). Furthermore as we move towards a more virtualized environment we have found that there is little need to upgrade the OS on the VMs. XP does really function quite well in a VM environment and until such time that options are not available for it I believe it will continue to be the OS of choice.

   We're primarily in an environment where a user would see a single desktop on their NxTop and so I think we'd not need to really modify our current purchasing agreements to accommodate NxTop implementation.

   [Admin Note: Originally posted by randyf25]

   Post a reply        Posted 2 years ago #
3. 

   Evan Karp
   Virtual Computer

   Reputation:73

    

   We are not currently on Microsoft licensing, but we are in the early stages of talks to look into it. From first impression, there does appear to be some savings involved as well as a way to make payments over a period time versus all up front, which is painful in the current economic state.

   If the only way to acquire a license for NxTop is through Microsoft Volume licensing, then that may cause some issues. I always enjoy working with software companies that offer several methods of licensing. Usually one is available to address our company size and budget.

   [Admin Note: Originally posted by jelledge]

   Post a reply        Posted 2 years ago #
4. 

   Evan Karp
   Virtual Computer

   Reputation:73

    

   We plan to sell NxTop licenses directly to customers under a software subscription model, as well as provide the option to purchase perpetual licenses through a network of partners. So, it won't be necessary to go through Microsoft Volume Licensing to buy our product. That said, there are some potential advantages to having Microsoft Volume Licensing if you use NxTop. The first is that Volume Licensing makes it easier to do central PC image management. If you roll the OEM licenses that come with the PCs you buy into volume licensing, you can get special media / license keys from Microsoft that make it easy to create a master image for deployment on many PCs without worrying about activation of individual copies and OEM license tricks that tie the copy of Windows to specific hardware. In addition, they also have a program called Software Assurance that can gain you the ability to run up to 4 virtual machines on a single PC using a single Windows license.

   Don't interpret this as a specific endorsement of Microsoft Volume Licensing, as I think they make the whole thing way more complicated than it needs to be. However, we will be doing some work with white papers, etc. to help prospective customers understand where Microsoft Volume Licenses and Software Assurance may provide advantages to them. We are also gathering some tips and tricks on how to get the most bang for the buck with Microsoft licensing that we'll be sure to pass on.

   [Admin Note: Originally posted by Doug]

   Post a reply        Posted 2 years ago #
5. 

   Evan Karp
   Virtual Computer

   Reputation:73

    

   Doug-

   I think I got myself mixed up on your question. We do have an Enterprise agreement which allows us to roll a central image to any PC with no activation. Once again MS licensing terms causing confusion. We still purchase individual licenses when the PC is purchased, right now we have Enterprise Vista licensing with XP rollback support from Dell.

   You can also enter into an SA agreement with MS and license the Desktop Bundle in your SA agreement which gives you a license from Microsoft for Windows and Office.

   Virtualization of an MS operating system is actually fairly complex if you are in a thin client environment. You'll need to purchase the VECD options for your virtualized PCs. The VECD option does allow you to run up to 4 virtualized instances of an OS per user/device. The only problem is that you need the subscription model for this. If you choose NOT to run a VECD environment then you need to essentially purchase two FULL copies of the OS you are going to run. The first is for the virtualized machine and the second is for the device that will access that virtualized environment. In other words, NOT choosing VECD is not really cost effective.

   Then again, is VECD really cost effective? The pricing appears to be around $375 per year (retail). We're still working out our model for this. I'll be on the horn today with our MS rep to try and clarify things (if that's possible). Of course there's always Linux based desktops! :-)

   For your sleeping pleasure:
   http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/enterprise/benefits/licensing.mspx

   [Admin Note: Originally posted by randyf25]

   Post a reply        Posted 2 years ago #
6. 

   Evan Karp
   Virtual Computer

   Reputation:73

    

   Okay, well I received some clarification on our VECD pricing and my suggestion would be to contact your MS rep and get pricing information for your organization. I cannot say what our organization gets but I can honestly say that purchasing the VECD licensing for the device in question would not be a problem for us.

   [Admin Note: Originally posted by randyf25]

   Post a reply        Posted 2 years ago #
7. 

   Evan Karp
   Virtual Computer

   Reputation:73

    

   We're currently using the MS Campus Agreement volume licensing. It's specific to EDUs and is a yearly subscription unlike Enterprise and Select. The pricing makes it a no-brainer for us. It comes w/ quite a few SA benefits, but not as many as the commercial volume licensing agreements.

   Our desktop license gives us OS upgrade and Office licensing. I would think we could add desktop OS licenses to the agreement, but I'm still matriculating in my MS in MS Licensing degree.

   [Admin Note: Originally posted by tficarra]

   Post a reply        Posted 2 years ago #
8. 

   Evan Karp
   Virtual Computer

   Reputation:73

    

   Hello,

   We too are subscribed to the Microsoft Campus License agreement. Which is separated into two components for use. An FTE (based upon a staff/faculty formula) which allows us usage on all instituition owned devices. The second component is our mobile student licensing component. This is structured in such a way that upon graduation grants the rights to continue to run the current versions of MS products on their laptops. If the student wishes to acquire the media for a product, they can go through our portal to order the media from a distribution company and pay just the shipping charges.

   I don't think the student portion of the MS campus agreement would be of interest, but a formula for a site license may - based again upon a formula of full time equivelancy (FTE) of staff and faculty.

   [Admin Note: Originally posted by gerrity]

   Post a reply        Posted 2 years ago #
9. 

   Evan Karp
   Virtual Computer

   Reputation:73

    

   After more lengthy discussions with our MS Rep here are essentially the only two licenses you'll ever need to satisfy your MS licensing requirements for operating systems in a Virtual Environment.

   The VECD which covers 4 virtualized instances per licensed user. This is a yearly subscription based license.

   The SMSE which covers virtualization on servers. One license per server for unlimited virtualized OS instances on that server.

   http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/en/us/management-suites.aspx

   in education land the pricing is very good.

   [Admin Note: Originally posted by randyf25]

   Post a reply        Posted 2 years ago #

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