ACRONYM LICENSING SERVICES:

Acronym can assist you with deciding which licensing solution is best for your organisation. Choosing the right type of licensing can provide significant benefits and conversely choosing the wrong licensing options can; ultimately cost more; cause your organisation to end up with non-standardised systems; and not provide easy upgrade paths. Acronym can help tailor a solution that meets you current and long term goals for both technology and cash flow requirements.

Acronym is a certified Microsoft Licensing Partner and can offer a complete range of licensing solutions for Microsoft products including Microsoft: Office, Windows, Windows Server, Visual Studio, SQL and many more. We can either provide rented subscription software or client owned software solutions.

We can assist you with the following licensing programmes:

- OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) / PKC (Product Key Card) which are retail licence sold with new equipment only.

- OLP (Open Licensing Programme) software purchased through a volume license agreement.

- SPLA (Service Provider Licence Agreement) software hosted by Acronym and rented to you on a monthly basis “pay as you go”

- OVS (Open Value Subscription) volume licenced software rented via an annual companywide contract.

- Office 365 (Cloud) software rented to you on a monthly basis “pay as you go” and delivered to you via the internet.

After determining the right licensing solutions for you Acronym can assist with deployment and setting up of these solutions on any combination of PC, MAC, and Smartphones.

WHY CHOOSE VOLUME LICENSING?

Volume licensing makes it easier and more affordable to run software on multiple computers within a company, a major benefit being improved deployment methods which ultimately reduce the overall cost of the software. By acquiring software licenses through Volume Licensing you only pay for the software license as typically costs associated with media and packaging are avoided. Another benefit of volume licenced software is its ability to be moved from one machine to the next unlike OEM and PKC licences which die with the machine they were purchased for. With Volume Licenced Office software Microsoft also include additional software benefits, one of these is the inclusion of BCM (Business Contact Manager) which is a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool.

There are differing volume license options available and it is important to get the right licensing option (or combination of options) for your organisation:

OLP – Open License Program (OLP) allows organisations to purchase software licenses without media to reduce upfront expenditure. It is associated with a Volume Licensing Account and the software is owned by the company. It has minimum license requirements to set up and offers flexibility to buy more licenses as required. The Volume Licensing Account allows you to access license keys and download software media which can be installed onto any workstation. The licenses can also be transferred between workstations as required. Volume Licenced Software can be installed on a Server and a laptop for the same user. Suitable for organisations of more than 5 workstations

OVS – Open Value Subscription (OVS) allows organisations to ‘rent’ software on an annual basis over a 3 year “companywide” contract, this is an effective way to spread costs and ensure standardised software platforms across the entire business. It is associated with a Volume Licensing Account and the software is not owned by the company. OVS comes with Software Assurance included (see below) and provides great flexibility in licensing options as organisations can increase, decrease or change their licensing on an annual basis to meet their changing business needs, effectively you pay a third of the licence cost at each anniversary but only need pay for additional licences at anniversary i.e. you can increase your licences part way through a term and there is no immediate need to pay for them. Suitable for organisations of more than 5 workstations.

OEM PKC – Product Key Card (PKC) is a single, one off purchase of a software license key with no media included. It is not associated with a Volume licensing account but provides similar lower upfront cost benefits. Suitable for organisations of less than 5 workstations. The license is OEM and cannot be transferred from one workstation to another.

OFFICE 365 – is the Microsoft cloud software licensing system for delivery of various applications via the internet including Microsoft Office Professional, Microsoft Office Web Apps, Microsoft Lync (communication tool), Microsoft SharePoint (document storage and management solution) and Microsoft Exchange which is an add-on to Microsoft Outlook to provide seamless email, calendar and contacts integration across multiple devices and platforms. For more information please see the Office 365 page.

Software Assurance - In the case of some Volume Licensing programs, you may also purchase Software Assurance. This maintenance offering can help you get the most out of your software investment as it combines your software with upgrade rights, home use rights, spread payment options, training and IT tools.