DILEMMA:
Microsoft was pressuring the client to enter into a new enterprise licensing agreement at a time when the client company was attempting to finalize their legal divestiture from their parent company (with less than 12 calendar days remaining in the year, all client’s executives and legal staff were occupied and not able to turn their attention to this very costly acquisition).
ISSUES:
- The client was uncertain that the deal presented by Microsoft was in their best interest.
- Microsoft’s sales representative was anticipating execution of an enterprise agreement reflecting their written proposals on the very day that the client engaged Levy LeGette to provide its services, putting the rep’s bonus and/or performance metrics (and those of his managers) in jeopardy.
- Most employees of the client company as well as the individuals that we needed to contact within Microsoft were either already on their holiday vacations or preparing to leave for the seasonal holidays.
- Microsoft’s own focus was on pleasing the much larger, former parent organization.
- Microsoft refused to correct errors it had made in calculating the final pricing for the client, and further tested the client’s resolve to obtain reasonable terms by insisting that all negotiations be completed between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve – thinking they had set an impossible task for a client that they described as “difficult”.
STATUS:
Microsoft’s failure to correct errors; and, its reneging of offers extended after long hours of negotiation with Levy LeGette drove the client to cancel the pending EA unless Microsoft found a way to correct its errors and to restore the concessions that Levy LeGette had negotiated.
RESOLUTION:
- The client was given an extended period of time (6 months) to evaluate its new licensing deal and make any needed adjustments within its first year of operation following the divestiture.
- During this 6 month period the client was able to transfer licenses between its (newly formed) operating units, redistributing their fully paid licenses more effectively. The transfers and redistribution of these licenses allowed the client to avoid paying for new licenses as originally proposed by Microsoft and its reseller.
- Server software would be provided at a version level that was more appropriate for the client’s needs without penalty and at the lowest price levels available to the client. [Two examples of the “penalties” and inferior pricing would be: (a) the need to pay for step up licenses (intervening versions of a software application from the original application licensed by the client to an upgraded version); and (b) the payment of license + upgrade fees versus payment only for the upgrade, which can only occur when a volume purchase agreement is in place.]
- The client had enough time to have a thorough inventory of its Microsoft assets performed by LL, allowing them to correct the inaccurate accounting and billing that had been taking place for years. The credit for the client’s overpayments, along with the economies realized in the re distribution of paid licenses, allowed the client to fund the new EA and other projects, and hire staff needed elsewhere in its newly formed organization.
- Through the delivery of Levy LeGette’s services, the client is now better prepared to track and order all vendors’ products and services with greater efficiency and the continuation of a better return on their investment in software products and services.
TOTAL HARD DOLLAR SAVINGS: $2,345,000.00
DURATION: 10 Days