[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.