License Rights Documentation Redesigned

A redesign of Microsoft’s Product Use Rights (PUR) document, a quarterly publication that outlines rules for licenses acquired through volume licensing programs, was introduced on Oct. 1, 2011. The new PUR format should allow customers and partners to find answers to many types of product and online services licensing questions more quickly and promises to be less intimidating to first-time users. Concurrently, a similar set of changes were made to Microsoft’s Services Provider Use Rights (SPUR) document, also published quarterly. However, the simplification efforts are limited to document format and organization improvements—the complex licensing rules themselves have not changed.

Key References for Volume Licensing Customers and Hosters

Microsoft’s PUR document is a key component of the legal framework that defines the licensing rules and restrictions for product and online services software acquired through volume licensing programs such as Enterprise Agreements and Select Plus. (See the sidebar “What’s in the Product Use Rights Document“.) Microsoft updates the PUR quarterly and maintains on its Web site an archive of previous versions going back more than 10 years. The PUR is available in English and more than 30 other languages. Any organization considering a major software purchase should look at the PUR to determine the types and quantities of licenses required for a given scenario as well as to ensure that it can legally use the software as intended.