Apple stopped Volume License purchase for OSX Lion. Help!

[GrahamPayton]

Hi All

 

 

I am hoping someone here might be able to help.

 

We were hoping to upgrade all our Macs to OSX Lion this summer, but when I went to order the licenses I was told that Apple have stopped the sale of Volume licenses with software assurance.

 

I rung Apple to clarify this and they confirmed it. To my utter astonishment all they could say was "Buy the Mountain Lion Licenses in July". We don't really want to do this as we feel we can't trust a brand new released Apple OS on our entire campus. We have a mixed estate of OSX Leopard and OSX Snow Leopard. Sadly we never purchased any software assurance, which I am trying to rectify now.

 

Is anyone else stuck with this problem, and if so how are you intending to proceed?

[SYNACK]

Install Windows 7 site wide, that'd teach them

[Dos_Box]

Moving to Licencing forum.

[GrahamPayton]

Sorry for choosing the wrong forum area.

 

Synack I'd dearly love to do that with Windows 7 and get rid of them all. Would be simple enough with our campus agreement. We were going to dual boot them all with Lion and Windows 7.

 

I cannot believe Apple have stopped selling licenses before the new version is available.

[localzuk]

The fun thing I was told was that you have to have gone through the previous versions for the license for the latest one to be applicable too. So, if you had a Leopard machine, then you'd've had to have legit licenses for Snow Leopard as well as Lion for the Lion one to be legal.

 

So, if they're not selling volume licenses of each, that leaves you kinda scuppered in bringing your fleet up to date.

[HodgeHi]

Mountain Lion can be upgraded directly from 10.6 Snow leopard so won't need Lion. However, I would purchase the mountain lion when available and deploy Lion anyway. It's not my fault that I cannot choose what version of the OS I want. If I wish to run a previous version and purchase the latest, surely that would be my decision. I am still licensed after all?

 

Apple's licensing is becoming a real problem for users not wishing to run with the latest version. I don't want to update to Lion as "versioning" would be just too much to teach to staff let alone the kids. And to have the software keep moaning about versioning not being supported on the volume would annoy everyone greatly.

[localzuk]

Mountain Lion can be upgraded directly from 10.6 Snow leopard so won't need Lion.

 

Can you provide some sort of link saying that? It flies in the face of what I've always been told!

[HodgeHi]

Apple - Upgrade your Mac to OS X Mountain Lion.

[GrahamPayton]

I can understand what people are saying about going straight to Mountain Lion. The trouble is we don't want to. Apple are notorius for things not working and we haven't had time to test it. We have been testing Lion, but didn't want to buy the licenses until we knew we were ready to switch. I can't believe I missed Apples cut off date by 5 days!!!!! And there was no warning I saw anywhere, or even a call from our Apple Rep.

 

I was told that if I had a single install disc for Lion I could just install that everywhere. I was dumbfounded by this statement. When I asked if the Mountain Lion licenses would then allow me to downgrade to Lion they clearly said that "No that wasn't allowed!". However they then went on to advise me to do just that!!!!!

 

I raised the obvious question about "So what happens if the software police come and do an audit then?" Funnily enough they went a bit quiet.

 

It seems to me like Apple don't really care about the enterprise and volume license areas like colleges and Universities anymore. It's like they are making too much money from the home users now with iPads and iPods etc.

 

Currently we have 9 x servers and approx 400 x Mac clients, and we are totally screwed unless we wait for Mountain Lion. Even then we won't have enough time over the summer holidays left to do a roll-out!

[HodgeHi]

If you have a Lion installer, I would perhaps just roll out Lion or stay where you are at (10.6.8)?

 

Do you need to move up to Lion?

[sidewinder]

^ To be honest, if you get that in writing from them ("you can use one disc to install everywhere") I'd be tempted to do it, if that's what they are advising!

[GrumbleDook]

I thought that you could go backwards from ML to Lion on the VL deal? At least that is what a few HE/FE folk think and have been told ...

 

I'll go and ask again but now have a feeling they were told the same as you.

[Sean-OC04]

I thought that you could go backwards from ML to Lion on the VL deal? At least that is what a few HE/FE folk think and have been told ...

 

I'll go and ask again but now have a feeling they were told the same as you.

 

You are correct, Apple licensing rules have always been shrouded in mystery but.....

 

As long as you have a legit licence for each Mac then it doesn;t matter whether that is ML or Lion, so a downgrade from a VL licence of ML to Lion would be perceived as a proper legit licence.

 

BTW, I've never seen anyone from Apple in the UK wanting to audit software licences.

[JR-PCS]

You are correct, Apple licensing rules have always been shrouded in mystery but.....

 

As long as you have a legit licence for each Mac then it doesn;t matter whether that is ML or Lion, so a downgrade from a VL licence of ML to Lion would be perceived as a proper legit licence.

 

BTW, I've never seen anyone from Apple in the UK wanting to audit software licences.

 

I agree with this too, and I know many Apple resellers advise this to there customers and have done so since the days of users wanting an OS9 license when you could only get OSX. These resellers would even burn a copy of the earlier version that the customer wanted.

[MacGeek]

Buy a copy of Lion via the app store. Image and restore. Make sure you buy enough copies of the Mountain Lion VL when it comes out and you will be fine. We run Snow Leopard on Lion generation iMacs and Apple Ok'd it.

[mac_shinobi]

Buy a copy of Lion via the app store. Image and restore. Make sure you buy enough copies of the Mountain Lion VL when it comes out and you will be fine. We run Snow Leopard on Lion generation iMacs and Apple Ok'd it.

 

I thought you could only image upto 5 macs for each downloaded copy you get

[JR-PCS]

I thought you could only image upto 5 macs for each downloaded copy you get

 

I think you can only download it on 5 macs but you can image it to as many as you want.

[Roberto]

It seems to me like Apple don't really care about the enterprise and volume license areas like colleges and Universities anymore. It's like they are making too much money from the home users now with iPads and iPods etc.

 

That's the impression I get too, which is why we're not bothering to upgrade from Snow Leopard and have no plans to invest any more in our mac infrastructure. If Apple don't want to sell stuff to us, we don't see why we should struggle to try and force them.

 

I thought that you could go backwards from ML to Lion on the VL deal? At least that is what a few HE/FE folk think and have been told ...

 

I'll go and ask again but now have a feeling they were told the same as you.

 

As I'm from FE, I'll say we've heard a lot of stuff but no-one has ever shown me something written in black and white that confirms what my college can and can not do with OSX licences in this regard. This is crazy - you can't base a major deployment on rumour and hearsay.

[SYNACK]

Its the Apple way, they don't provide the required enterprise support in all areas then 'helpfully' suggest that they won't come down on you like a tonne of bricks, probably. You just have to trust them not to change their tune and come down on you like a bag of hammers at some point when they do eventually make up their minds or decide they want more money.

[Roberto]

Its the Apple way, they don't provide the required enterprise support in all areas then 'helpfully' suggest that they won't come down on you like a tonne of bricks, probably. You just have to trust them not to change their tune and come down on you like a bag of hammers at some point when they do eventually make up their minds or decide they want more money.

 

I understand that it's the "Apple way". The point is that none of us should (and we certainly will not) work that way with any supplier. Essentially, my employer's position comes down to: proper licence agreements or GTFO.

 

Software companies don't get to make dire threats about piracy on one hand and then not bother with proper licence agreements on the other, as far as we're concerned.

[SYNACK]

I understand that it's the "Apple way". The point is that none of us should (and we certainly will not) work that way with any supplier. Essentially, my employer's position comes down to: proper licence agreements or GTFO.

 

Software companies don't get to make dire threats about piracy on one hand and then not bother with proper licence agreements on the other, as far as we're concerned.

 

I fully agree, I have lost count of the times when the certified Apple tech's main suggetion/recomendation was to pirate various titles as we were a school and that was an expected benifit. This was back in the OS9 days but they are still playing the same two faced games. The Apple crew are all for the 5 iPads to one account thing as a benifit to schools basiclly ripping off the developers to help Apple. Adding work load and putting the school at risk all because they can't be bothered to setup the propper agreements. Its all stupid games with them unless you are in the states which is the only market they actually care about. Sure they sell them elsewhere but outside the states its varying degrees of ripoff and risk.

[Arthur]

Considering the price of OS X has been getting progressively cheaper over the last five years, what's the problem with just buying X copies of 10.8 from the Mac App Store?

 

Leopard          $129.00 (£83.00 inc. VAT @ 17.5% / £72.17 ex. VAT)
Snow Leopard      $49.00 (£25.00 inc. VAT @ 15% / £21.74 ex. VAT)
Lion              $29.99 (£20.99 inc. VAT @ 23% / £17.07 ex. VAT)
Mountain Lion     $19.99 (£13.99 inc. VAT @ 23% / £11.37 ex. VAT)

 

Leopard Server*        $999.00 (£629.00 inc. VAT @ 17.5% / £535.32 ex. VAT)
Snow Leopard Server*   $499.00 (£399.00 inc. VAT @ 15% / £346.96 ex. VAT)
Lion Server             $49.99  (£34.99 inc. VAT @ 23% / £28.45 ex. VAT)
Mountain Lion Server    $19.99  (£14.99 inc. VAT @ 23%?)

* Unlimited Client Version

[Roberto]

Considering the price of OS X has been getting progressively cheaper over the last five years, what's the problem with just buying X copies of 10.8 from the Mac App Store?

 

Because this process becomes less and less manageable as the value of X gets higher. My college has got better things for me to be doing with my time than messing around with the app store trying to buy 75 individual copies of each thing we want - is that even possible without 75 accounts, or will it just say "you've already purchased that..."?

Edited June 25, 2012 by Roberto

[sidewinder]

Because this process becomes less and less manageable as the value of X gets higher. My college has got better things for me to be doing with my time than messing around with the app store trying to buy 75 individual copies of each thing we want - is that even possible without 75 accounts, or will it just say "you've already purchased that..."?

 

Exactly, it isn't the price that is an issue, more the manageability of it. Considering the lack of serial numbers/activation, I would have no problem buying 50 individual copies, but I'm guessing it wouldnt be as easy as that

[GrumbleDook]

If you look at it from a Change Management / Project Management point of view, this is either a very naive action or one of plain disdain for large scale users on the part of Apple. You cannot plan to role out a system when you have not had training on it, have access to a final live system or have a lot of direct engagement from the OS provider on it. This is one area I have a lot more time for Microsoft over Apple any day.

 

I have asked the question now and been told there are no downgrade rights (partly due to cheaper price) and it will work on any CPU running SL (having tested it on an older machine ... it doesn't run as well as SL or Lion in comparison to how ML runs on a new machine). I suppose it would be up to a school to decide whether they want to break their agreement and downgrade to Lion (should they have the VL media).