Discussions

Dear all, I talked to a Manager at MIT's Information Services and Technology Department about their policies for software site licensing. The following summarizes what he said: Few departments pool to handle such software sometimes. Central IT occasionally joins these departments and takes over the licensing and distribution, in which case the costs are shared. >> (Also, once site-licensed, due to lowered cost, use goes up, which allows for 'next-tier,' cheaper licensing.) My sense of some 'lessons' for us: Let me know if you need any further clarification. Best. Varghese
 * The following characteristics usually are associated with software site licensed for __Institute-wide distribution__:
 * Enterprise software (Oracle, Microsoft, etc.)
 * Deep discounts
 * Distribution costs are small compared to the overall cost of the software
 * Certain types of software (e.g. Endnote) are left for __departmental licensing__. Characteristics:
 * Discounts are small.
 * Unit price is small.
 * Distribution cost is a large portion of the price.
 * Process for identifying software suitable for site licensing:
 * Mostly from alerts by vendors about large number of individual licenses.
 * They also look for customer push – usually departments sense that earlier.
 * Use vendors vigorously for monitoring the number/growth of individual users.
 * Use department pools for some software, especially for low cost, low discount, high transaction cost type.
 * 
 * Use departmental IT person to get an early sense of 'local' needs.