Volume Six - September 2025
Subject – Responding to Microsoft Licensing Changes: 5 Key Actions
Hello there, welcome to volume six of Source Code Conversations. It’s great to have you hear with us!
This month we welcome back for a third time, our Director of Cloud Services, Paul McAdam. Paul is with us to discuss key things to do in response to the Microsoft license changes.
Matt: Hi Paul, welcome back to Source Code Conversations, third time with us! I understand you approached us wanting to speak about Microsoft Licensing updates. You have a lot of experience in Microsoft licensing, could you speak on your experience in this please?
Paul: Third time lucky Matt! I used to teach Microsoft licensing and had a number of years leading the Microsoft UK Software Asset Management team (I can hear the booing and hissing from here). But it does give you a sense for the rules.
Matt: Thank you for the quick introduction. You’re here with us today to speak about the license update Microsoft have completed, could you tell us more about this please?
Paul: Yes.. and this is a bit of a simple but seismic change really. In a nutshell, Microsoft are removing their programmatic discounts from the EA, Open and MPSA programmes. That means everyone and every product reverts to the base level price. The days of being a big company and casually getting a discount are gone. You have to be informed and ready for negotiation.
Matt: Understood, thank you. So, what can we do in response to this change?
Paul: Well, I think there are 5 things an organisation must do:
- Understand your “value to Microsoft”. This is a great negotiating statistic and it’s sort of the weak point of Microsoft’s change. By removing discounts from enrolments, it means you can pressure based on total spend.
- Understand what discount you were getting previously – you should be able to find your Price Sheet on your agreement. You might be able to ask your reseller. Or you can use Google.
- Once you know that you can then rank the products by value and focus in on the top 10 etc. Understand your EXACT user numbers. I regularly see customers with either guesses or 15% or 20% buffers. WHY would you do this? That is literally putting your money into someone else’s bank account.
- Know what products are actually in use and use them or take them away. Take the view that there are no “freebies” any more. A really important point is thinking about what you might use before the end of the agreement and get those items added to your Customer Price Sheet before Oct 31st 2025. So, if you have standardised on E3 and want to add new users to the lower priced E1 – buy E1 now to get it on your price sheet.
- Let’s face it – unless you have been hiding under a bush you should know that Microsoft are going to try and upsell Copilot and sell you as many E5 seats as possible:
- Know your competitive products and what you spend on them.
- Know your position on AI – how many users? Are they using them?
Matt: Thanks for outlining those 5 key areas. Out of these steps, which one do you find gives the most negotiating power with Microsoft?
Paul: Honestly, I think all 5 items are different weapons or “power ups” to be used at different aspects. I would certainly lead with “here’s my total monthly value to Microsoft – it has increased on last year and I used to get a 13% discount, now…”. You get my point.
Matt: Microsoft’s Copilot technology is of interest to a lot of organisations at the moment, what impact if any would this have on licensing and discounts negotiations?
Paul: Copilot is a phenomenal technology if you are using it and, also using it well. One piece of research can easily save you the £25 – £40 per month – as long as you spend the time saved productively of course! Be prepared for the hard sell on this topic and be prepared by knowing how many users you have and how many you want over the next few years. I would also suggest you have a strategy for what you want in return! For example:
- Are you aiming to licensing every seat?
- If you have set a limit of say 100 seats – who is going to get those licenses and how are you going to monitor and ensure productive usage?
- What training and help can you get for deployment, training and management?
- What can you get for moving to 200 seats?
Matt: Lots of great hints and tips there. Is there one key item?
Paul: Go back to the 5 questions. If you cant answer those, we can help you get the tools you need to gather that data. We can also help you build the arguments.
Matt: Thank you for your time today, Paul, if our audience would like to get in would they do that?
Paul: Thanks Matt, you can get in touch via out Contact Us form or contact directly with hello@sourcecodecontrol.com.
And that’s a wrap on another volume of Source Code Conversations. Thank you for reading and please do get in touch if you would like to talk to our team about any of the points raised here or in previous editions.
As always, you can read the previous instalments of our series, as well as other content produced by our team, at Blog – Source Code Control
Paul McAdam
Interviewee
Matt Webb
Interviewer
Zoe Hawkins
Editor