Software Reassurance

Joe Wilcox Microsoft released some non-volume licensing news today. For enterprises trying to make sense of a Q&A posted today, there is little new.

Today's nonannouncement is more PR than substance—some reassurance about the benefits of Software Assurance.

Tip: If Microsoft doesn't use the word "today" or some other time element, there's little or nothing new contained in press releases or Q&As. In this case, the little new:

• The MPLA (Microsoft Product Licensing Advisor) is now available in 11 languages.
• Dynamics products are now available through the MPLA.
• The Forrester ROI tool is updated to support Microsoft volume licensing changes announced nearly a year ago.
• The MLS (Microsoft License Statement) is available to more customers.

I asked Paul DeGroot, Directions on Microsoft lead analyst, to pipe in on today's announcements. DeGroot is one of the best outside authorities on Microsoft volume licensing and what it means to enterprise customers.

"The MPLA changes are more valuable to Microsoft than to customers, and even their value to MS is dubious," DeGroot said.

MPLA is Microsoft's tool for providing volume licensing pricing for its products.

"But it's glacially slow, and in the past has had some glaring inaccuracies," he said. Problem: Microsoft uses the tool to cross-sell products, which complicates obtaining accurate pricing information. "I wish they'd keep it simple," DeGroot emphasized.

Dynamics MPL addition should be a welcome change for enterprises, except Microsoft left something out.

"Adding Dynamics products—without pricing—to the Microsoft Product Licensing Advisor is ridiculous and more of the 'how much can we add before we break this thing completely' approach they seem to be taking," DeGroot said.

Dynamics pricing has long been a pain for everyone. Microsoft acquired many of the applications in the product family and existing sales channels with them. The process of integrating disparate channel structures with its own has been slow going for Microsoft. Generally, and unlike most other Microsoft products, the only sure way to get Dynamics pricing is to make a phone call. Absent pricing through MPL is consistent with the situation from Microsoft's Dynamics Web site.

DeGroot described the Forrester ROI as "an interesting piece of work," because "the original version had some unusual assumptions," such as relationships to time and money.

Example: "If this tool saves everyone in a company with 1,000 employees one minute a day, the company will realize two person-years in savings a year, or maybe $200,000 dollars a year," DeGroot explained. "Any partner who used the ROI tool to pitch SA runs the risk that someone will question his numbers, and when they get to that one, the partner will pretty well lose his credibility."

As for MLS, its usefulness to enterprises is limited by volume licensing focus.

MLS "doesn't record OEM licenses, which every customer also has, retail licenses, etc., and larger customers can already look at their volume purchasing records online," DeGroot observed.

More broadly, Microsoft has stripped lots of Software Assurance usefulness for purchasing upgrades by tacking on all kinds of so-called benefits—what DeGroot described as "a massive grab bag of bennies that no customer can usefully take advantage of all of them. Some customers have told me that they have had to hire people to keep track of their SA benefits, it's that complicated."

The increasing complexity, which newer tools don't diminish, makes assessing long-term value and return on investment difficult for enterprises to assess.

"To usefully benefit from SA, you need to be able to pick out the stuff you'll actually use, and then compare what it will cost if you were to buy it elsewhere," DeGroot said. "It could be easier to build a spreadsheet to predict the next earthquake in Redmond than one that will nail down the real ROI of SA."

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