[jm4]

It hasn’t been that bad for me. I give them an updated user count and tell them what else I’m using once per year and they give me a bill. They’ve never pushed back on anything. We start with a conference call, I send over a spreadsheet and that’s it. They have software I can run on my network, but they have always let me give them the numbers from my asset tracking system. Frankly, they’re one of the easiest software vendors I deal with.

[fragmede]

"User count" sounds so simple when you put it that way. That spreadsheet isn't trivial to build, and the situation on what's in it may be foreign to some readers here (it was to me).

A Microsoft shop needs licenses for each laptop/desktop running windows, but in an office using Microsoft Server to operate its LAN and the requisite services - DNS, DHCP, SMB file sharing, VPN, email, etc - basically any device that touches the Windows Server machine needs a Client Access Licences (CAL), which is available in user-based and device-based flavors.

Let's say the company operates a website and has developers. The development/QA environment requires an (expensive) MSDN account (or whatever it's called now) per-developer. In production, unlimited anonymous/unauthenticated users are allowed to hit IIS (web server). Authenticated access by employees to IIS needs a user CAL, authenticated customer access requires an External Connector (EC) license. But don't worry, the backing MS SQL Server database for the website also needs to be licensed, with per-cpu-core-per-machine licensing available. Except everything's a VM theses day, so the servers sit on top of a VM host (Microsoft Hyper-V), so there's some additional licensing intricacy there to deal with.

On top of that, there's the Services Provider License Agreement (SPLA) licensing model available for ISVs, but OEM licenses cannot coexist wth SPLA licensing on the same system (VMs + host).

Just to make it more fun, different Microsoft reps will have different answers on how some of the more subtle intricacies even apply!

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/licensing/product-licensing/...

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/licensing/licensing-programs...

[jm4]

I don’t know. I don’t think it’s that bad. I don’t put together the spreadsheet from scratch. Been doing it a long time though. We start with what I had last year. I just have to fill in my numbers for each license. Then they come along and tell me I need an external connector because I’m doing this or that. I groan a little bit and pay.

They’re pretty easy because you only have to do it once a year. It drives me nuts when a vendor wants me to manage individual licenses as people are coming on board. I end up having to keep extras on hand. At least let me reconcile quarterly or something. It’s even worse when each seat has its own key.

Microsoft makes the license management and reconciliation so easy. The only negative about their licensing is they double dip with the desktop OS and CAL stuff.

[lunchables]

I see you have never been through a SAM audit.

We've been on EA for years and the amount of complexity and shifting rules year by year is absurd. It is nearly impossible to stay in compliance. Even the companies who have "owned" our EA (partner responsible for managing it) are wrong frequently about licensing rules, later contradicted by Microsoft.

If you have a handful of licenses on a Select agreement, or O365 (I don't know, we dont use it) maybe it is simple. But a large enterprise customer? It's a fucking nightmare.

[jm4]

We are on an EA. Annual spend is in the 200-250 range. We have pretty tight asset management so it’s not difficult to get precise numbers. We have grown substantially over the past 7 or 8 years and our license count has gone up accordingly so I’m sure that helps too. Maybe we ran their software once or twice to confirm counts. It’s kind of a non-event. I’ve never experienced any kind of full blown audit where they challenge our numbers and go looking for hidden software. We keep track of what we use, pay for it during true up and renewal, and that’s about it.

[lunchables]

>I’ve never experienced any kind of full blown audit

I have been through SAM audits. It is a huge pain in the ass. You will spend hours arguing with them over obscure licensing details that equate to tens of thousands of dollars in licensing costs.

For example, in one audit they charged us for Visio licenses because we paid for Pro versions of licenses but the helpdesk had accidentally installed Standard.