Introduction

SharePoint is Microsoft’s strategic platform for corporate portals, document management, team collaboration, Web content management, enterprise search, and business intelligence (BI). Packaging, licensing, and pricing changes introduced with SharePoint Server 2010 in May 2010 include moving developer-related components from the commercial product into the free SharePoint Foundation offering, a 10% price increase for certain server and Client Access Licenses (CALs), a new server license covering use of higher-end search technology than is included in the base product, and an additional server license for Internet and extranet sites.

Retains Similar On-Premises Licensing Model

Licensing of SharePoint Server 2010 for on-premises use remains generally consistent with its predecessor, SharePoint Server 2007. The SharePoint 2010 product line offers four tiers of functionality, up from three in SharePoint 2007, with each tier being a superset of the one below. SharePoint is licensed using a server-CAL model, under which an organization purchases a server license for the right to run software on a server, and CALs for the right for users or devices to access the servers.