MS Pricing Plans

A friend of mine presented this to me:
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Recently, Microsoft offered an "Enterprise Agreement Program" to the
Department of xxxx and we immediately requested quotes based on this
agreement to see how we would fare. The cost for the Enterprise
Agreement, when compared against the other options, is reasonable, and
the benefits associated with the Enterprise Agreement are significant.

Summary of Cost Comparison (for MS Office, Windows, CAL Bundle):

MS Enterprise license    per seat cost:    $218.25 annually, for three years.

Upgrade Advantage    per seat cost:    $328.36 paid once, two year agreement

Software Assurance    per seat cost    $407.00 paid once, two year agreement

New License        per seat cost    $632.00 per license

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Let me get this straight. The Department paid $50 (or so) for Windows
when the computer was purchased, and $250 (deep Government discount) for
Office. Now Microsoft wants them to pay almost this same amount every
year? Where's my MS Enterprise Car, the one that I buy for a fixed
price from the dealer, and then pay the same price for year after year?

Looking at it another way, $218 per year for a small enterprise of say,
250 people, is $54,500 per year. That's enough money to add one more
person to the work force (a $15.00/hr worker). If you have a large
enterprise, of say 10,000 people, which (using the same numbers as
above), is $2,180,000 per year. $2.1M will buy fourty $15.00/hour
workers, or up to 18 high-tech people. It seems to me that with a team
of 18-40 people, a company could migrate off the Microsoft nipple and
recover their investment in under two years.

But then there's that "What if it breaks? Who do we point the finger
at?" I am not qualified to discuss Microsoft's Enterprise support.
Maybe someone else can speak to that from first hand experience? If
it's anything like the support contracts I've seen from every other
vendor *EXCEPT* Sun Microsystems, it is money wasted. The Enterprise
would get more return on their money by rolling it up on spools and
putting it the restroom stalls.

Just a thought . . .

George