D&C GLug - Home Page

[ Date Index ] [ Thread Index ] [ <= Previous by date / thread ] [ Next by date / thread => ]

Re: [LUG] CCC Computer refurbishment

 

On Mon, Jan 07, 2008 at 09:24:54PM +0000, Rob Beard wrote:
> Grant Sewell wrote:
> > On Mon, 2008-01-07 at 18:42 +0000, Ben Goodger wrote:
> >> On 07/01/2008, Henry Bremridge <henry.bremridge@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>         - For MS there is an ongoing PERPETUAL license fee to be paid.
> >>
> >> Actually perpetual licensing means the direct opposite of this. A
> >> perpetual license is purchased and continues to operate perpetually;
> >> the model you are referring to is "software as a service" where a
> >> subscription is paid perpetually and continues to operate for about
> >> forty seconds. 
> > 
> > But if one purchases a "perpetual license" for MS Office 2003, let's
> > say, does one automatically get to update to MS Office 2007 without
> > charge?  Or is the license *only* for MS Office 2003?  If the case is
> > the latter, then surely in order to "keep up to date" one must therefore
> > continnually (or 'perpetually') purchase new licenses?
> > 
> > Grant.
> > 
> 
> According to Microsoft, a perpetual licence gives the council the option 
> to either purchase a small amount of licences and then purchase other 
> licences at the same price for a 2 year period (the more they buy on the 
> first purchase they get the discount, so if they only buy 10 copies to 
> start with then they pay a discount on the 10 copies, if they buy 1000 
> copies at a later date they woudln't get the discount they would on 1000 
> licences, just the discount on 10!), although the council will probably 
> be under a Select licence if they have purchased a perpetual licence. 
> Basically in this case the council makes an estimate of how many 
> licences they want for 3 years and get a discount on that, then they can 
> change the estimates on a yearly basis.
> 
> Still not as cheap as OpenOffice though.
> 
> I think you're right by the sounds of things Grant, they don't get any 
> free upgrades to the latest version on perpetual licences, they'd 
> probably get to keep the licences for the old machines but no doubt 
> after 3 years or so if they want to upgrade they'd have to buy new 
> licences for each machine they want to upgrade.
> 

There is a fairly standard financial measure that is used to measure future 
payments. This is the discounted cash flow.

The council should at the very least be prepared to state
- What discount rate was used to derive the present value of future MS payments
- What future payments are expected
- The expected cost of a onetime conversion (on MS windows) to OpenOffice


--
Henry
Mon Jan  7 21:47:00 GMT 2008

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: Digital signature

-- 
The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG
http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list
FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html