Transitioning Visual Studio from an EA to an MCA

• Midsize customers are being forced out of Enterprise Agreements and steered toward Microsoft Customer Agreements (MCAs) and Cloud Solution Providers.
• Several factors can increase the cost of Visual Studio and cause customers to lose related benefits when switching from an EA to an MCA.
• Confusion can occur from the naming of annual and monthly subscriptions, which differ by more than just subscription length.

The Enterprise Agreement (EA) was historically Microsoft’s preferred contract for customers with more than 500 users, but over the past few years, the company has increasingly refused to renew EAs, sending smaller, less strategic customers to buy through a Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA) using Cloud Solution Providers (CSPs). The change in contracts affects the way customers purchase Visual Studio (VS), possibly leading to increased costs and lost benefits.

Annual Versus Monthly Visual Studio Subscriptions

VS and its related components are available in Enterprise, Professional, and Test Professional editions, and an MSDN Platforms edition is available for operations personnel. All editions are sold via annual and monthly subscriptions. VS Professional offers a third option: a freestanding perpetual license that provides use of the VS Professional integrated development environment (IDE) only. Annual and monthly subscriptions differ by more than just the duration suggested by the naming: