Licensing Advisor Provides Volume Pricing

A new tool for pricing volume licenses gives customers access to volume pricing, including volume discount information, for most major Microsoft products and will be expanded in the future to provide more information about product use rights, support benefits, and other licensing-related data.

The Pricing Problem

The new Product Licensing Advisor site addresses a significant barrier for customers who want pricing information, as earlier Microsoft efforts to provide licensing information were uneven. For example, the online product catalog did not consistently list prices for all stock-keeping units (SKUs) and volume prices were not available for most products.

Microsoft says a survey of customers in the spring of 2005 showed that pricing was a key issue for customers, particularly for mid-size businesses that had less experience with volume licensing.

While the company has several online licensing tools, access is restricted to partners and other special groups. As a result, volume pricing issues generate about 800 calls a day to Microsoft help lines. If it were any consolation for customers, even Microsoft’s help desk didn’t have easy access to an online tool: they generally worked from spreadsheets.