There can be an opportunity to free up your IT budget by taking alternate software procurement strategies. For example, according to IT analysts such as Gartner and Forrester, and customers, there is potential to achieve savings by revisiting signing or renewing Microsoft Enterprise License Agreements. An alternative procurement strategy can involve purchasing the required number of licenses based on user segmentation and associated business requirements. This potential for savings can offer you the opportunity to self-fund mission critical initiatives and continue to leverage new innovations and associated paradigms that promotes market leadership.
Free up IT budget...with IBM
Project Liberate.
Reducing your Software expenditures by Software License Optimization.
Client Access Licenses split Server features and may increase cost. According to Paul DeGroot from "Directions on Microsoft" customers may end up spending more money on Microsoft enterprise agreements soon.
News from Infoworld and Information week make similar recommendations
Lower cost options free IT from software maintenance fees.
Following publication of the Gartner report, Ephraim Schwartz authored an article for InfoWorld that further calls attention to ways that companies can reduce payments to Microsoft for license agreements. As Schwartz points out, many companies are now seeing alternatives to consider (e.g., Linux desktops or open source applications) instead of the Microsoft one-size-fits-all solution. And he suggests customers stop paying Microsoft for innovation they are getting from elsewhere...
Gartner report - Five Leverage Points to Use When Negotiating with Microsoft The article covers such tactics as how to "walk away" from a proposed deal, how to use hardware refreshes to upgrade operating systems, and how to negotiate only the Client Access Licenses you truly need.