From: "Swisher, Bob" <bswisher@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@listserv.ou.edu'" <it-fyi@lists.ou.edu>
Subject: it-fyi: Microsoft Revises Licensing to Answer Colleges' Complaint
Date: Thu, 8 Apr 1999 15:10:01 -0500
Thursday, April 8, 1999
Microsoft Revises Licensing Plan to Answer Colleges' Complaints
By JEFFREY R. YOUNG
In hopes of getting more colleges to buy Microsoft software for everyone
on campus, Microsoft officials this week revised the company's
controversial "Campus Agreement" pricing plan.
The new pricing plan, dubbed Campus Agreement 2.0 and to be available
beginning on May 10, essentially answers three logistical complaints by
campus-technology leaders, says Kim Johnston, business manager of
Microsoft's education-customer unit. The spirit of the agreement remains
the same: Colleges will get deep discounts if they buy a full suite of
Microsoft software for all campus users.
The agreement will allow a college or university to pay a single annual
fee -- based on the number of administrative and faculty users it has --
for a wide range of products, including operating-system updates,
word-processing and spreadsheet software, programs for producing
World-Wide Web pages, and more. For an additional sum, a college will
also be able to buy every student copies of the same programs.
The most significant change in version 2.0 of the plan will be that
students can keep the software after they graduate. Previously, students
could use the software only while they were enrolled at a university
that had signed an agreement.
But the change will come at a price. Microsoft will raise the fee for
the agreement by $2 per student. That means that the price per student
will be $21 for institutions with fewer than 15,000 students; $19 for
universities with 15,000 to 24,999 students; $17 for those with 25,000
to 49,999 students; and $15 for those with more than 50,000 students.
"We think that's a very fair price, considering that the student now
walks away from the university owning the products," says Ms. Johnston.
Another change in version 2.0 is that campus officials will be able to
distribute copies of the two most popular Microsoft titles -- Office
2000 and FrontPage 2000 -- on CD-ROM. The original agreement forbade
distribution by CD-ROM because Microsoft officials feared that students
would pirate the software and give it to friends. But a new
"Registration Wizard" in those programs will protect against illegal
copying, says Ms. Johnston.
Campus-computing officials want to put the Microsoft programs on CD-ROMs
so they can be more easily resold to students, Ms. Johnston says. The
agreement will allow colleges to charge students for the software to
help the institutions recover some of their costs.
The third new feature of version 2.0 is that colleges will have the
option of backing out of the deal if they decide it isn't working out.
The original agreement had no escape clause.
Critics of the licensing plan worry that bulk deals with Microsoft will
lead universities to buy less software from the company's competitors.
Microsoft officials say they are simply offering an enterprise-wide
option because campuses demanded it.
Only 150 colleges have signed Campus Agreements since the plan was made
available, in September, and only 25 of those institutions opted to buy
licenses for every student. Ms. Johnston says she's pleased with the
initial response, but notes that Microsoft announced the original plan
too late in the year for many universities to consider it.
And, she says, the logistical points addressed by the new version of the
plan were important enough to some institutions "to make them not want
Campus Agreement 1.0."
Background stories from The Chronicle:
"Microsoft's New Licensing Policy Angers Students at Harvard and U. of
Wisconsin," 4/2/99
"California State U. Signs $8-Million Deal With Microsoft for Software
Licenses," 1/8/99
"Microsoft Signs $6.3-Million Deal With U. of Texas System," 9/18/98
"Microsoft Tries to Answer Campus Critics With a New Pricing Plan for
Its Software," 9/4/98
"Indiana U. Signs $6-Million Software Deal With Microsoft," 4/3/98
"Education-Technology Administrators Discuss Pricing of Microsoft
Products," 3/13/98
"University Officials Criticize Microsoft's New Licensing Policy,"
12/12/97
Copyright © 1999 by The Chronicle of Higher Education