Microsoft does not make licensing SQL Server easy, either under SPLA or under volume licensing agreements. Here are the three most significant problems that our clients face when trying to license that product: Four-Core Minimum – Microsoft allows SQL Server to be licensed based either on physical core counts (for physical servers or virtualization hosts)…
Companies with experience licensing Microsoft software and services through Enterprise Agreements know that small forests could be felled to produce the paper required for the typical document stack. EAs often incorporate a dozen or more different components, including some or all of the following: Microsoft Business and Services Agreement or Microsoft Business Agreement (Microsoft sometimes…
Microsoft, like other software publishers, routinely audits customers to help ensure that it is protecting the value of its intellectual property. Microsoft verifies its customers’ compliance using several methods. Microsoft License Verification (also, Software Asset Management “SAM” request). In a SAM request, Microsoft assigns a third party to reach out to a customer to confirm…
Many software-solution vendors utilize third-party infrastructure or application programs as frameworks for embedded solutions that they sell to their customers and install on their customers’ computers. Licenses for those third-party products typically can be acquired by a vendor and passed to its customers pursuant to the terms of an Independent Software Vendor (ISV) or Original…
Software-license compliance can be a difficult task, and understanding the standard Autodesk Software License Agreement may present challenges. Here are four of the most important terms in that agreement to remember for compliance purposes: 1. License Terms Vary Regarding Installations. a. Multi-seat license. Although Autodesk generally restricts software installations to one installation per license, the…
If your company licenses products to third parties under the Microsoft Service Provider License Agreement (SPLA), you may receive a request to perform a self assessment and provide a certification of compliance to Microsoft. The SPLA self-assessment audit is a new audit flavor that is unlike the independent audits Microsoft has historically used to audit…
Mergers and acquisitions typically require extensive financial and legal disclosures, due diligence, and complex contract language to protect buyers from legal issues that may arise from the purchase. Potential liability arising from intellectual property issues is a significant factor to consider in any M&A transaction. The following are a few key considerations to negotiate during…
Autodesk sometimes reaches out to its customers to offer additional services, products, or upgrades on existing software. Autodesk’s business team may offer to conduct a license assessment to confirm a customer is properly licensing all of its software as part of the offer to provide additional services. Autodesk may also request that the customer use…
Most software audits pertaining to products licensed under perpetual licenses (such as licenses acquired under a Microsoft Select Agreement, MPSA or (usually) Enterprise Agreement) incorporate a snapshot-in-time approach, where licenses owned generally are compared to deployments identified through data collected about current-state product deployments. In contrast, audits pertaining to products licensed under a Microsoft Services…
Obvious though it may sound, in almost every software audit the most crucial element contributing to a positive outcome is an accurate inventory of what software is deployed. Unfortunately, far too many businesses faced with an audit end up receiving grossly over-inflated compliance-purchase demands, because the inventory data received by the auditors and used to…
If your company uses a Microsoft Service Provider License Agreement (SPLA)—and it probably does if Microsoft considers you to be in the commercial hosting business—you will be audited at some point. Typically, Microsoft SPLA customers are audited once every three years. When that time comes, it is important to know how your company may be…
Each of the major software publishers has one or two tricks up its sleeve – tricks that often are missed by licensees – affecting how its server products may be used in virtualized environments. For example, Microsoft SQL Server requires a minimum of four core licenses per vCPU, even if the actual number of vCPUs…
Managing a complex IT environment very challenging, even before becoming involved in an external software audit from a software publisher or a third-party auditing entity. Businesses facing VMWare audits in particular should be prepared to take a number of steps to ensure compliance and avoid exacerbating any potential copyright infringement claims. Step 1: Identify the…
Most businesses that try to plan for software audits and to estimate the potential exposure they could incur in the event of those audits know that the primary cost components of that exposure typically are the prices associated with any licenses they may have failed to acquire. For example, if a company determines it has…
Microsoft’s Services Provider License Agreement (SPLA) is the principal licensing agreement for companies that want to use Microsoft products to deliver hosted software solutions over the Internet. Microsoft’s standard volume license agreements expressly prohibit using the software for “commercial hosting” purposes (though, limited exceptions are offered for certain use cases and subject to specific requirements)….
Software auditors such as KPMG, Deloitte and PriceWaterhouseCoopers like to have things their way. It’s an understandable impulse – with likely hundreds of audits pending at any one time, the natural inclination is to standardize the process around a single set of tools and processes with which the auditors are most familiar. However, those tools…
Often, after signing a Master Service Agreement (“MSA”), a service provider and its client will memorialize the details of the project by crafting a Statement of Work (“SOW”). The importance of the terms in a SOW is sometimes overlooked by both business and legal teams because an SOW is commonly considered a business document rather…
Software-compliance audits initiated by IBM can be extremely burdensome and time-consuming and can force companies to face challenges that are somewhat unique among major-publisher audits. For one example, a significant component of IBM’s business model is the acquisition of other software vendors and the integration of those vendors into IBM’s product portfolio, which can complicate…
Businesses contacted by Adobe for software audits can be lulled into thinking that those investigations entail less exposure risk than audits by other publishers, like Microsoft or IBM. Adobe audits typically are conducted directly by Adobe representatives, rather than by a third-party auditor like Deloitte or KPMG, and the inventory data usually is provided by…
When licensing Oracle products, many businesses fail to understand the licensing requirements for virtual technologies and disaster recovery. These licensing mistakes can result in significant unbudgeted expenses related to Oracle software licensing. (1) Virtualization Virtualized hardware is now fairly pervasive in the IT world. But, incorrectly virtualizing an environment can have catastrophic effects to a…
