You have an Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, and you find:
- That it costs you too much?
- That it’s too complicated?
- That it does not reflect the reality of what you use?
- That it is difficult to manage and renew?
If you answered yes to at least one of the above questions, then we need to meet.
After seventeen years at Microsoft, including about ten to manage customers with enterprise agreements, our founder has the required skills and experience to simplify your life, save you time, money and sweat to manage your Enterprise Agreement.
You are undoubtedly wondering if there is a catch or a risk to review and negotiate an Enterprise Agreement this way. Here are some ideas to ponder:
- Your Microsoft Account Manager, if you have one, is not the specialist of your environment, he or she is a salesperson whose objective is to exceed his or her sales objective (nothing wrong with that, we all have goals, but you rather be saving your money, no?). More and more Microsoft account managers are sitting in a call center thousands of miles away from you and will never visit you! Even if you happen to have a local account manager, his or her interest is to maximize the income he or she’s going to get from your agreement. Our founder has been one of those account managers and a manager of account managers, and we can assure you that the pressure is intense to add products to inflate the bottom line of your bill.
- Generally, it is your software advisor (Licensing Solution Provider or EA Direct Advisor) who negotiates with you the terms of the agreement. Like your Account Manager, the Software Advisor is interested in maximizing the bill you are going to pay because it will get a percentage of it.Sure, you’ll be able to put pressure on him or her to get more services, but this may costs still too much. Knowing that the software advisor is kept on a short leash by Microsoft and its account manager has sales goals to reach, its latitude is therefore limited.
- Enterprise agreements often contain errors. Wrong quantities or incorrect SKUs are frequent because of the complexity of Microsoft licensing. These errors can be the source of audit failures, for which Microsoft never accepts its responsibility. Not to mention that you can end up paying for licenses that you don’t use or will never use, to “get a discount.”
- You can do the work by yourself, but the rules of Microsoft licenses are continually evolving and increasingly with the cloud, keeping abreast is therefore extremely costly. By calling a third party whose business is analyzing and maximizing the value of your software environment, you avoid these costs and benefit from the best deal built for you at the best rate.
- The aim is not to circumvent the licensing agreement and end up in an uncompliant situation, but rather to document all the licenses and services used to demonstrate their correct use in the event of an audit.
Aetheis helps you regain control of your Microsoft licenses and services by saving time and money! Contact us by mail on licenses@aetheis.com or info@aetheis.com for more information and a quote!