Services Provider Licensing Updated

Hosting companies that offer Microsoft products as a hosted or managed service have been given more flexibility, lower prices, and a broader range of product offerings. Changes to the Services Provider License Agreement (SPLA), which lets Microsoft partners provide online hosting and management services with Microsoft products, will help Microsoft maintain a significant role in providing popular applications over the Internet and should keep third-party hosters in business even as Microsoft itself offers overlapping solutions.

Why Hosting?

Most Microsoft customers use the company’s software on computers that they own and run on their own premises, but some use hosted services, such as hosted Exchange servers, or managed services, such as on-premise PCs or servers and their software, for which they pay a service provider a rental or leasing fee. The most significant benefit of these arrangements is that customers do not need to employ their own IT staff to manage the computers and applications, but can depend on a service provider employing expert staff who manage thousands of computers with high reliability.