Microsoft Adjusts Volume Licensing for Cloud Computing

A screen shot of Microsoft’s volume licensing page

(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) –- Microsoft (www.microsoft.com) announced on Thursday at the Microsoft Hosting Summit in Bellevue, Washington that it is making several enhancements to its Microsoft Services Provider Licensing Agreement program.

The company has introduced a new volume licensing plan that will make it easier for customers to move over to the cloud.

Referred to as license mobility, the changes give customers greater flexibility to deploy application servers on-premises or hosted by service providers in the cloud.

The company has reduced the pricing and management overhead for Windows Server in the MSPLA program by eliminating all outsourcing SKUs for Windows Server starting July 1.

After this date, Microsoft will remove workload restrictions for “non-outsourcing” SKU, which will lower pricing and management overhead for Windows Server in SPLA.

Microsoft stated it decided to offer license mobility in order to help customers move to the cloud without having to purchase additional licenses, including Exchange Server, Lync Server, SharePoint Server, SQL Server and Dynamics CRM.

The company will also introduce a new Core Infrastructure Suite, which will include Windows Server Datacenter, System Center Server Management Suite Datacenter and Forefront Endpoint Protection, in the SPLA program to make it more inexpensive to license infrastructure at their data centers.

According to a Microsoft spokesperson, the new licensing option “enhances business opportunities [for partners] by paving the way for qualified Microsoft customers to take advantage of cloud computing without having to bear the economic burden for products that they already own and have covered through Software Assurance.”