Which BackOffice pricing and licensing strategy is right and most cost-effective for your organization? On this page, you'll find the fundamental concepts and information to guide your decision.
For more complete details, read the BackOffice Family Pricing and Licensing white paper. For a quick overview, see what's below:
The BackOffice Licensing Model
BackOffice licensing brings these overarching advantages:
- Flexibility
Customers' input helped design a flexible licensing model that enables you to deploy the products you need in a way that best fits your organization—regardless of size, structure, or location. You determine the licensing options which make the most sense for your organization.
- Simplification
The simplified BackOffice licensing model has been structured to make this part of your life as straightforward as possible. For example, a BackOffice Client Access License (CAL) offers access to any licensed server software in the BackOffice family.
- Competitive Pricing
Each member of the BackOffice family is priced attractively compared to its competition. The pricing available when applied to combinations of family members and with even small volumes of computers offers further value.
- Business Value
Consistent licensing helps you manage your overall costs, facilitate consistency across your entire organization, and maintain control of licensed use of Microsoft software products.
- Predictability
With BackOffice, you can easily predict pricing as your needs grow.
Server and Client Licensing Options
In simplest terms, a license is your organization's right to use or access a software product as specified in the license agreement that you make with Microsoft. To use any BackOffice product, you first need a server license. You must also acquire a Client Access License (CAL) for each "device"—workstation, terminal, pager, etc.—accessing one of those products.
One key decision is whether to deploy your CALs in "per seat" or "per server" mode. "Per seat" licensing means you acquire a CAL for each workstation or other device that connects to any licensed server. "Per server" (or concurrent) licensing, in contrast, means you can have a set number of devices connected to any licensed server at a given time.
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Per Seat vs. Per Server Client Access Licenses |
| Per Seat |
- Best where workstations frequently connect to multiple servers within your organization.
- Can be applied to any BackOffice family server product requiring CALs.
- Example: 200 workstations regularly connect to Microsoft Exchange Server installations. Purchase 200 CALs.
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| Per Server |
- Best where workstations infrequently connect to specific servers.
- Can be applied only to Microsoft Windows NT® Server, Microsoft SQL Server™, Microsoft SNA Server, and Microsoft Site Server.
- You may switch from per server to per seat mode once.
- Example: 200 workstations sporadically connect to five servers (no more than 20 connections to any one server at a time). Purchase 100 CALs.
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Benefits of the BackOffice CAL
In many cases, the simplest, most cost-effective solution is the BackOffice CAL. This client access license gives a device the right to use any or all of the BackOffice family products, in any quantity or combination, anywhere on your network. It's often your best choice if you have a single device that will access two or more BackOffice applications.
For example, if you've purchased BackOffice CALs as well as server licenses for Exchange Server, SQL Server, and Site Server, users in your organization can access all three products. Exchange Server CALs, in contrast, would allow access only to Exchange Server.
The BackOffice CAL option also can help you adapt your licensing to your organization's changing needs, because you can easily upgrade a CAL for any specific BackOffice product to a BackOffice CAL. This is one more example of the flexibility and value of the BackOffice licensing model.
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Making the Model Work Best for You
Before deciding exactly how you want to handle your licensing, you'll need to examine your business environment and carefully analyze your anticipated usage patterns. Some of the matters to bring to bear:
- The kind of work your organization performs.
- The software you have installed today.
- The BackOffice products you want to use. Do you need an entire suite? Some of the products? Just one?
- The number of computers and other devices that will connect to a server.
- The typical duration of connectivity to servers. Do your computers remain connected all day? Only long enough to send occasional print jobs and e-mail messages?
Next, factor your answers to the above into the table of alternatives below:
| Types of Licences Available |
| Standard |
- Required for a computer without licensed software installed that performs essentially the same functions as the software being considered.
- Example: The initial purchase of a license for SQL Server for installation on a computer without any other database-management software legally installed.
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| Version Upgrade |
- Available to owners of licenses for previous versions of the same software.
- Generally priced significantly below Standard licenses.
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| Upgrade Advantage |
- Available to Version Upgrade customers as part of Microsoft's Volume Licensing Programs (see below).
- For a fixed fee, your license is automatically updated for any new version release at no additional charge.
- Good for a two-year period.
- Available through both the Select and Open License programs (see below).
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| Competitive Upgrade |
- Offered to customers who currently own licensed copies of qualifying competitive software.
- Significant savings over Standard licenses; typically at a price no less than that of Version Upgrade licenses.
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| Product Upgrade |
- Applicable when upgrading from one Microsoft product to another, more advanced Microsoft product within the same product category.
- Example: Upgrading from Microsoft Mail to Exchange Server.
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| Component Upgrade |
- Applicable when upgrading from any single-component product of a suite to the entire suite.
- Example: Upgrading from SQL Server to the BackOffice Server suite (which includes SQL Server).
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With these considerations complete, you'll be ready to decide which way to purchase the licenses for the BackOffice products you need—either through standard retail channels or through our volume licensing programs.
Volume Licensing Programs
All of the programs described below enable organizations to license Microsoft products on an ongoing basis, and help reduce administrative overhead and software-management costs. Each also offers considerable discounts.
| Volume Licensing Programs |
| Enterprise Agreement |
- Greatest advantage if your organization has at least 1,000 workstations and you can forecast software acquisitions over a three-year period.
- A fixed, pre-determined, annual price per desktop.
- Includes major desktop applications (Microsoft Office) and operating systems (Microsoft Windows® family).
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| Select 4.0 |
- Greatest advantage if your organization has at least 1,000 workstations and you can forecast software acquisitions over a two-year period.
- Discount is determined by volume of purchases forecast within product pools.
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| Open License |
- Greatest advantage if yours is a small or medium-sized organization with more than 10 workstations.
- Agreement term of two years.
- You can combine product purchases to reach higher discount levels.
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| Educational Programs |
- Advantages of the Select 4.0 and Open License programs available to academic institutions.
- Prices substantially lower than those paid by other customers.
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Of course, the size and nature of your organization will play a great part in the selection of your licensing arrangement. If you have fewer than 10 workstations connecting to a server, for example, retail purchasing generally is the best option.
For large organizations, by contrast, enterprise agreements especially can greatly simplify planning and management. With this option, you know your licensing expenditures for the next three years, have rights to use the most current versions of products, and use BackOffice CALs rather than product-specific CALs.
Product Pricing and Licensing Specifics
For pricing and licensing details on Microsoft BackOffice products, see the pages below:
Read A Guide to SQL Server Licensing for Line-of-Business Applications for a more in-depth look at SQL Server licensing.
For Windows NT pricing and licensing, visit the Microsoft Windows NT Server site.
For More Information
For a more expansive and in-depth look at the licensing of Microsoft products, visit the Microsoft Enterprise Licensing site.
You'll also find there a glossary of licensing terms, including some of the terms used here.
