Upgrade SharePoint, Know the Cost Maybe
October 20, 2010
A reader sent me a link to “Announcing the SharePoint 2010 Price Calculator, a Free Tool to Estimate SharePoint 2010 Licensing Costs.” If you are have a Microsoft logo tattooed on your arm, you will need this calculator. Bamboo Solutions’ engineers have created a tool that makes it possible to estimated the licensing costs for SharePoint or a SharePoint upgrade. Of particular interest to me was this passage:
Of particular note for existing SharePoint customers is that there have been a few changes to the license types available with SharePoint 2010 from the WSS/MOSS model of 2007. Of the three license types available for SharePoint 2010 (defined by Microsoft as Foundation, Standard, and Enterprise), here’s the quick ‘n’ dirty lowdown: Foundation is a free download, though companies using it must be properly licensed for Microsoft SharePoint Server; Standard and Enterprise both require the purchase of SharePoint Server 2010 and licensing of the requisite feature set; the Enterprise CAL is additive (i.e., you must already have the Standard CAL), and the Enterprise license also provides the opportunity to add on a license for FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint. Microsoft makes available a handy feature-comparison list between the three license types, allowing you to compare at a glance just which features are available (or unavailable, as the case may be) with each license type.
Several observations.
First, the calculator will provide “rough cut” numbers. I have heard that Microsoft has been increasingly aggressive in its pricing when Alfresco has been under consideration.
Second, Microsoft’s own pricing approach continues to confuse me. The notion of client access licenses and bundles is difficult for a goose to deconstruct.
Third, the inclusion of the Fast ESP technology makes pricing particularly difficult. The reason is that the Fast technology must be tailored, tuned, and configured. In most cases, this work requires patience, engineering expertise, and a solid knowledge of the “dark side” of precision and recall.
I recommend the pricing calculator. I would use the numbers as part of a negotiation process. You may find other uses for the tool. Whatever happened to a basic price list? Access the Bamboo widget gizmo here.
Stephen E Arnold, October 20, 2010
Freebie
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
