It's always a numbers game and it's most cost effective if you are buying a large % of new machines then you can add SA and get with the program. Once you are with one agreement then it's only the SA to worry about. In a lot of cases it's about cash flow short term and only after 6-7 years that you actually save money - which is difficult in the current climate. We are Authorised Educational Resellers and have all sorts of spreadsheets for running the numbers.
Pricing is not really about if Microsoft cares, but rather if the distributor cares and can take it up with Microsoft. Over the years we have seen all sorts of anomalies in products. Also keep a look out for the end of financial years and financial quarters. What helps if you plan with what you have a the moment and see where you want to be after the next refresh and then look at how interim purchases will slot into that plan. Mike -----Original Message----- From: Tim Vander Kooi [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 11 September 2009 10:40 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Win 7 Price The official number I came up with after months of research was 192 licenses being the breakeven point where buying an EA made sense, although Microsoft officially touts 250 as their official number. The EA is purchased directly from Microsoft (although you use a LAR to do the paperwork) so then they can negotiate price when you are in that space. Anything under that, and you are looking at eOpen or something similar which you would buy from whoever your favorite software vendor may be. HTH, Tim -----Original Message----- From: Ben Scott [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, September 11, 2009 4:34 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Win 7 Price On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 5:23 PM, Tim Vander Kooi <[email protected]> wrote: > You negotiate your SA renewals with Microsoft the same way you can > negotiate price with them up front for Licenses and SA. How big do you have to be before MSFT starts to care? When I checked a few years ago, for my current employer (120 people, ~ 75 computers), we were too small to have any negotiating leverage. MSFT told us to call a reseller (e.g., Dell, CDW). Reseller quotes their standard price. :-( On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 5:30 PM, Tim Vander Kooi <[email protected]> wrote: > [Software Assurance] also makes a great deal of sense when you have an > EA or similar since they basically throw the Client OS licenses and SA > in for free. Sounds like this might be a "large vs small company" thing. Enterprise Agreement is way out of our reach. -- Ben ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
