Moving away from Microsoft Volume Lisence Agreement

[tosca925]

I have been into a school today to help their tech. They currently want to know about Moving away from Microsoft Volume Lisence Agreement. I have sat down with him and they are paying well over the odds for this type of lisence and do not and will not need it int he distant future.

 

How do they stand if they move awy from this?

How does this affect current lisence for PC's etc, does this mean they are no longer lisenced or they have to pay for alternate lisences? i.e; if you have 100 pc's 70 havd come in with a XP COA and 30 do not, if they stop the MVLS agreement will they need to buy 30 XP lisences?

 

We i am at we never used MVLS so can't help him.

 

Lots of advice needed please?

[Gatt]

They will need to buy retail licences for every bit of software they want to run - for every PC within the school.

 

If the Pc's came with Windows pre-installed then this is probably an OEM licence which isn't transerrable to new PC's -

 

So if they have 100 pC and are running Xp with OFfice 2003 they will need:

 

100 x copies of Windows XP

100 x copies of Office

etc

etc

 

any software installed using a MVLS licence must be removed from All your PCs if you end the agreement

 

So you will have to restore the 70 PCs to their factory settings (with what was probably an OEM licence of XP) as well as buy new software for the other 30..

 

also, you will need to activate those PCs under Windows Product Activation - which mean syou can only do it so many times before Microsoft start to complain...

it's probably cheaper in the long run to use the MVLS - unles you move to Linux

[StewartKnight]

If the PC's came with XP, then they don't have to pay for the licences.

All other o/s will have to be paid for, and Office will have to be paid for on EVERY pc (unless it came with Office)

 

How about using Open Office as a free alternative?

[FN-GM]

I agree with StewartKnight about open office its a fantastic bit of software for free, It can defiantly replace Microsoft Office in a school primary school, but in a high school I am not to sure. In high school you have specialist ICT lessons and you may need Microsoft Office to follow guidance in text books.

[Heebeejeebee]

.... plus CALs and any server/SQL licences you may have in the agreement.

 

HBJB

[russdev]

Well i just happen to be reading something on this today.

 

Upshot is that you can elect to buy out volume license etc but that does cost bit of money.

 

 

Full blog post from Ray at Microsoft at http://blogs.msdn.com/ukschools/archive/2007/09/18/buying-microsoft-software-how-to-get-the-best-deal.aspx

 

 

Russell