Enterprise CAL Suite Reduces Complexity, at a Price

A second layer of Enterprise Client Access Licenses (CALs) for many server applications has further complicated Microsoft’s licensing model. To make managing CALs easier, Microsoft has introduced an Enterprise CAL Suite, which includes both enterprise and standard CALs for these and other servers. Although the Enterprise CAL Suite will cost twice as much as the current Core CAL Suite, Microsoft will market it to enterprises as a cost-saving measure, since buying the suite will cost much less than buying its component CALs separately.

New Features Require Enterprise CALs

CALs augment many Microsoft server licenses. A customer who installs a server that requires CALs must purchase a CAL for each user or device that accesses the server. For example, each user of Exchange must have a CAL for Exchange and a CAL for Windows Server, on which Exchange runs. A CAL must match the server product’s version (e.g., an Exchange Server 2007 CAL is required to access Exchange Server 2007), but a single CAL can be used to access multiple instances of a server. For example, a single Windows Server CAL gives a user the right to access any Windows Server (of the same or a lower version as the CAL) within an organization.