Microsoft Rental Rights Licensing scheme

Beginning of the 01st January 2010 Microsoft has started the rental scheme of their Operating system and Office products. If you’re a partner who is renting or lending machine to customers for projects or for training this will be a good news for you. You don’t have to put a hefty price on your rental price tag for the OS you’re preinstall and delivering. As per Microsoft resellers advantages are as follows,

Rental Rights licensing offers Microsoft resellers a range of benefits, including:

• Customer satisfaction. You now have a way to sell licenses that fit your customers’ business models, help ensure their compliance, and solidify your role as a trusted advisor.

• Convenience. No special tools, processes, reporting, or paperwork are necessary; the transaction works like any other license transaction.

• Revenue. Selling the new licenses means new revenue.

• Flexibility. Just like with other Volume Licensing SKUs, you have the flexibility to determine the pricing for your customers and to run promotions.

In way this is a welcome method to reduce the piracy of software and give the freedom to comply with licensing as well. More information can be found over here.

Apart from that their are certain restrictions for this scheme as well, Those are as follows,

Rental Rights licenses are user rights licenses only (they do not include software), so no media fulfillment is involved. The following important limitations apply to the Rental Rights licenses:

• Perpetual license. A Rental Rights license is permanently assigned to a specific device and may not be reassigned to another device. When the device reaches its operational end-of-life, so does the license.

• Remote access. Rental Rights do not allow for remote access to software.

• Separate devices. Use of additional copies of the qualifying software on a separate portable device or a network device is not allowed.

• Additive license only. Rental Rights licenses are not stand-alone product licenses and do not replace customers’ underlying Windows desktop operating system or Office system licenses; Rental Rights are additional licenses that modify the underlying license terms, allowing for rental, lease, and outsourcing of desktop PCs with licensed, qualifying Windows desktop operating systems and licensed, qualifying Office systems.

• Virtual machines. Rental Rights do not account for software used within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system. In other words, the primary customer may not create and rent virtual machines.