Volume Licensing Programs

Many organizations need to license multiple copies-from a half-dozen to tens of thousands-of Microsoft software. To make it easier for these customers and Microsoft to manage such purchases, the company offers a variety of volume licensing plans that provide discounts and other benefits. These plans cover everything from small organizations with two or three computers and a half-dozen employees to huge multinational enterprises with operating units all over the world, hundreds of thousands of client and server computers, a full-time help desk, and other dedicated IT resources.

The most obvious benefit of these plans is lower software prices-as much as 60% below retail prices in some cases. But these plans differ from each other in many important respects, and choosing the right plan-or whether to use volume licensing at all-requires careful study.

Among other things, volume licensing choices have an impact on how organizations

• Track software use to ensure that they are not violating