M$ Site License - How do they work?

[chalkwellstu]

Anyone give me a heads up on M$ site licenses. how do they work, how is cost worked out, how do you get them etc .....

 

are they better value than just buying new kit with the OS installed?

 

thanks

 

S

[dhicks]

Anyone give me a heads up on M$ site licenses. how do they work, how is cost worked out, how do you get them etc .....

 

My knowledge might be a little out of date, things might have changed, especially with Windows Vista and all: Microsoft offer the school's agreement. This means you pay a flat yearly fee per 80x86 machine in your school. You get to run any Microsoft software ever made on all of your machines. I think it also covers staff use at home, too. Note that it's per machine, whether it's actually working or not, running Linux, whatever, you still pay. I don't know what the yearly fee is now.

 

You can also buy bulk licenses for software. You can't get stand-alone bulk licenses for Windows, when you buy a bulk Windows license you are basically buying an "upgrade" license. You have to have a Windows (pro) license first (don't know how this relates to Vista, with the half-a-dozen different versions there now are).

 

are they better value than just buying new kit with the OS installed?

 

You have to do this anyway. We're using stand-alone licenses of Windows XP Pro, just the ones that came with the machines. We're backing up (slowly...) each machine to a networked backup facility for easy restoration should it be needed.

 

--

David Hicks

Edited January 16, 2008 by Ric_

[CyberNerd]

Beware of Microsoft schools agreements Current government advise is not to buy into them whilst the Office of Fair Trading are investigating microsoft.

 

We recommend that if [schools] are not already using the School Agreement licensing model they should not at this stage move to that licensing approach.

 

http://news.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resID=35287&CFID=2041249&CFTOKEN=205384470dcccbe2-84359497-9482-BEDE-6684F0E4E6CC9FC8

[Gatt]

Becta have a real bee in their bonnet with Microsoft.. some of its justified some of its not..

 

Our Schools Agreement (3.4) costs us roughly £6k to £7k per year for XP/Vista, Server 200x , Office XP/200x, and a lots of other apps (Sharepoint, VS200x,Software Assurance, MSDN, Technet, etc.)

 

For us its the best solution...

[CyberNerd]

Becta have a real bee in their bonnet with Microsoft.. some of its justified some of its not..

 

The EU have some issues too.

 

Still be careful, if the OFT rule the schools agreement as illegal then you could be required to buy out your licenses in full.

[GrumbleDook]

If it is deemed illegal you might also have a case against Microsoft to reimburse you for payments already made. This is something else that is being investigated.

[chalkwellstu]

hey all thanks for the info. think i'll hang fire for a bit until this investigation stuff egts resolved.

 

that said i need 17 laptops and 15 desktops and i have 8k. any advice?

 

Stu

[ChrisH]

Second user gear if you are on a tight budget. Try one of our advertisers http://www.ict-direct.com . I have had plenty of workstations and laptops of them in the past.