Licensing for small businesses

[Slime101]

What options are available to small businesses with 3-5, or 3-10 employees regards to licensing software such as windows, MS office and other (mainly MS) software?

I fear the answer is probably buy indivdual licenses but that is VERY expensive for this kind of volume, cripplingly so in many cases.

 

[That Guy]

You can buy a volume license if you have more than 5 users I think.

Here is the place to have a nosey: http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/

 

[Slime101]

That means i'd have to be doing all the machines at once tho, which again because of cost is bad news.

How much does volume licensing cost?

 

[Burnsy2023]

The savings on an open licensing agreement won't be huge at all.

 

[Slime101]

So MS do essentially nothing to help what is probably the largest sector for illegal copies after home users!

 

[Bakedgoods]

It is what is is.

At those volumes you are not going to see a big discount. You are best trying to contact a large account reseller and finding out if they will deal with you, but again... at those volumes...

Maybe you should explore things such as Google Docs, OpenOffice etc?

 

[Slime101]

We have licences for our OS's, and for office on the 2 machines we have it on, but i was hoping to find a cheaper way of getting it onto all the machines, however open office may well be the only alternative.

Do MS do floating licenses?

 

[Bakedgoods]

Unfortunately they do not at this stage

 

[Burnsy2023]

Do MS do floating licenses?

Define?

 

[Slime101]

Define?

Software such as solidworks, or autocad or most other professional packages have floating licenses.

This means you can own say 2 licenses but use them on any number of machines, but obviously only on 2 at the same time.

 

[theheyes]

Don't forget though any machines you buy will be OEM licensed for Windows, which for a small network is absolutely fine and if you license those machines with Office 2007, while expensive, is supported for the next 7 years or so and is transferable should you upgrade the hardware in the meantime.

At face value it looks expensive, but it's a cost you don't have to worry about again for many years.

As mentioned, if cost is a big hurdle you can look into the OpenOffice/Google Docs but consider this carefully as sometimes only MS Office will do.

 

[Slime101]

Only if we use pre-built pre-installed systems

 

[Hoodlum]

So MS do essentially nothing to help what is probably the largest sector for illegal copies after home users!

They are the highest percentage of pirated copies afaik. Especially so if you include places outside the very richest countries in europe / north america.

Do MS do floating licenses?

No.

Only if we use pre-built pre-installed systems

Yep, you're essentially forced if you want to remain even slightly economical and legal at the same time.

If you're dead set on remaining legal...I'm guessing using alternatives is not viable for the OS etc? Even if just for office? There is not much you can do about it otherwise.

Edit: You may want to check out http://go-oo.org if you consider Openoffice.org It is the Novell derivative that accepts patches which Sun hasn't merged yet. It is considerably faster and has features the latest version has not yet merged due to some disagreements.

 

[Slime101]

Thanks for the info.

We have to stay on windows and wish to stay legal, we have managed so far but find expansion prospects rather expensive as we also wish to install SBS and things too.