Mention a Microsoft audit to an IT Manager and you’ll get a response that ranges from groan of frustration / inconvenience at the thought of locating serial numbers on servers housed snugly in their racks or fear, depending how honest they’ve been. Although businesses are less likely than the home user to have a bit of software their mate down the pub kindly copied for them, the additional work for an audit is rarely a joy.
Dynamics products were immune from SAM’s audits (Software and Asset Management Team, it would be wrong and unkind to call them the Microsoft Police!), the system self-policed in terms of concurrent users and the licence is purchased on a perpetual use basis. The light user licence, i.e. those accessing via a third party application, such as the internet or a mobile phone, can be abused; to date, Microsoft has trusted in the honesty of customers.

So why has Microsoft announced that Dynamics will now be subject to the same audit as Office and SQL? We believe it’s because the products are now too good! With the old Classic Client you could conceivable purchase a one concurrent user system and then create web-based forms that allowed further users to access the system. You could, but you wouldn’t as it would probably be as effective as buying one copy of the dictionary and photocopying it for everyone else. However, with technology like the web services in NAV 2009, it is now very easy to create web forms that access the database, extending the functionality and reach of the system. Great news for the product, bad for Microsoft as it reduces the demand for concurrent users.

Microsoft invests a significant amount of money in research and development, producing excellent products. They should be paid fairly for this so if you are eating Microsoft pie, then they’d rightly like you to pay. Microsoft may have turned a blind-eye to the odd stray crumbs in the past, now they are ensuring that in the future they won’t be the ones with just crumbs.