[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.