Microsoft: Volume licensees to get fewer CDs, shorter contracts

Microsoft is making a number of tweaks to its volume-licensing policies and procedures in the name of cutting complexity and reducing environmental waste.

The changes affect those licensing Microsoft products under Enterprise Agreements, Select licenses and Open License Agreements and will take affect over the course of the first half of Microsoft's fiscal 2008 (which kicked off on July 1).

Microsoft is reducing the quantity of CDs it ships to its volume licensees by shipping to them only the most widely used software on discs. The rest of its software will go out over electronic download from the Microsoft volume-licensing services Web site. The new policy will create less waste, "which is good for the environment," according to a statement from a company spokesman.

Microsoft also has reduced the length of its volume-license contracts between 10 percent and 50 percent, depending on the program, officials said. The company has removed all signature blocks from its volume-license forms. Instead, licensees will get a new signature form that requires only a "single signature event" with the customer.

Microsoft also is making price information about products easier to find in its contracts by reducing the number of different price points and SKUs in its volume-license programs.