The way to get the most value out of Microsoft is based on understanding the balance of ‘Tipping Points’ within Microsoft pricing structures. This price of a software license is context dependant. The price will vary across Countries, Volume Agreements, and finally the specific context of the Organisation – including but not limited to, Size and Purchasing Power.
Whether a company has a greater strategic approach in the commitment to the Microsoft Platform, or takes a narrow ad hoc approach to procurement will ultimately impact the individual price point of a given product or set of technologies.
This price elasticity across the multiple Volume Agreements for a particular organisation will be dependent on the quantity of product ordered or whether the organisation commits ‘enterprise wide’ to the Microsoft technology. If several technologies are committed ‘enterprise wide’ within a technology platform there will be a ‘Tipping Point’ when procurement of a Suite of products on a relational Volume Agreement will deliver more value over ad hoc procurement on a Transactional one.
The CAL Suites are an approach to buy access rights for multiple products in the Microsoft server stack. Ultimately, It will be dependent on your organisations planned upgrade path over time, existing license footprint and requirement for enterprise functionality.
If customers are looking at procurement enterprise wide and see the value of Software Assurance (SA) then the CAL Suite on an Enterprise Agreement (EA) or Enterprise Agreement Subscription (EAS) may make sense.
