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Software Audits: How High-Tech Software Vendors Play Hardball (infoworld.com)
snydeq writes: InfoWorld's Dan Tynan offers an inside look at how high-tech software vendors such as Adobe, Oracle, and IBM play hardball over software licensing, pushing customers to "true up" to the tune of billions of dollars per year -- and using the threat of audits as a sales tool to close lucrative deals. "When it comes to software audits, the code of omerta prevails," Tynan writes. "It's not a question of whether your organizations' software licenses will get audited. It's only a question of when, how often, and how painful the audits will be. The shakedown is such a sure thing that nearly every customer we contacted asked us to keep their names out of this story, lest it make their employers a target for future audits."
In the Microsoft licensing scheme you have to pay both device CAL's and user CAL's. So for each device you buy a device CAL and per user you pay for a user CAL. Server's also have to pay per processor (which is a toss-up between physical processor, core and thread depending on product and vendor or a combination of them).
I'm glad that Microsoft simplified their licensing at last.
The most dangerous drug
Keeping track of licenses is dead easy anyway.
Found the guy who's never dealt with a Microsoft Server License.