Brett’s Hosting’s sales director is consistently looking on the web to see what competition is advertising. It drives him nuts to see other “hoster’s” advertise SharePoint for less than what he can get directly from his reseller. He’s upset..big time. How can this be? Then he stumbles upon the Microsoft Office 365 website. He blew a gasket. “There is no way I can compete! I am going to go out of business!”
So the sales director decided to get creative. “I will forgo SPLA and just have my customers purchase SharePoint. They bring it into my datacenter, I won’t report SPLA anymore.” So that’s what he did. He started selling SharePoint by the truckload. Their reseller kept placing orders for him as they’d joyfully ask “how many CAL’s do you need?” and they would order it; never once asking what it was for.
Brett’s Hosting did a tremendous job marketing their SharePoint offering. “No SharePoint…No Problem!” It was marvelous. The CEO of Brett’s Hosting vociferously announced at the World Partner Conference “We are hosting over 10,000 SharePoint sites!” The celebration continued. Then one foggy October morning, the office manager for Brett’s Hosting received a letter from Microsoft. She excitedly opened it thinking they were being promoted as ‘SharePoint Partner of the Year’ but was severely disappointed. It was an audit letter. The story turns.
Brett’s Hosting CEO reviewed the letter and then called in their sales director (now sales VP). The CEO threatened him with his job unless he fixed this mess. The sales director/VP was at a loss. “Where did I go wrong.”
To be continued….
Where do you think he went wrong? Have you ever been given wrong licensing advice? You don’t need to answer that, I already know.
Hosting industry has changed. Competition has changed. End users have changed. In my experience, the conversation has changed from “how do I license Windows” to “what are ways I can optimize my licensing spend?” I’ve written about license mobility; I also reviewed SAL for SA. Those two programs have a common theme – Software Assurance (SA). In the above fictitious story, the sales person should’ve asked his customer “do you have SA on these licenses” That question is important because if they do not have SA, the entire environment (hardware/VM) must be dedicated.
I can’t stress this enough. The hosting game is getting brutal. Every service provider is looking for a way to cut/reduce costs. Getting in compliance hot water is not a good way to do that. If the customer does not have SA, you can certainly use SPLA in its place. If you go this route, be sure to make it a bundled solution. Telling customers they must pay for something they already own is not an easy conversation.
The customer can also purchase SA. You just have to be ready to clearly explain their options. That’s why it’s important to work with a reseller that understand SA benefits to help educate and coach you through the process; not all products are eligible. Be prepared.
Story continued…
The sales vp went back to his customers and asked them to purchase Software Assurance. When the customer asked “why?” all the sales vp could say is “because Microsoft told me you needed it.” (he clearly couldn’t explain why…it only made the customer more upset). The customer simultaneously yelled and slammed the door – “I’m going to Joe’s Hosting! They advertise VDI too!”
The sales vp went back to his CEO and was forced to resign. The customer went to Joe’s Hosting and was very happy for over a year. When out of the blue he received a call from his sale rep from Joe’s Hosting. The sales rep frantically told him they could no longer offer VDI; it apparently is not available under SPLA. The sales rep also asked him to buy SA for his SharePoint…”Microsoft told me you needed it!” The customer loses again!
Moral of the story – read the SPUR, read the PUR, and don’t be afraid to ask “Do you want SA with that?”
Thanks for reading
SPLA Man
