Open Plans Support Tactical Buying

Once the simplest of Microsoft’s volume licensing plans, the Open family of Microsoft volume license purchase plans has become more complex and now spans a wide number of variants. While Open discounts are not the best that Microsoft offers, the plans’ general simplicity make them good for departments making tactical purchases, and smaller companies that don’t have IT staff or business office personnel who can grapple with more complicated volume licensing plans.

Major Open Features

Although Open plans are available for organizations of any size, they are most often used by organizations with up to about 250 PCs, including charities, educational institutions, and small government offices. (Microsoft has special Open price lists as well as other volume licensing plans for these types of organizations, but this report focuses on businesses.) Even units of larger companies will sometimes employ Open agreements to take advantage of the simpler rules they offer compared with Microsoft’s primary plans for large companies, the Select plans and Enterprise Agreements.