Starting a small business involves quite a few eye opening experiences, the least of which is computer purchasing. I'll save the hardware aspect for another day and focus on software purchasing this time around. We're all familiar with the basics; you want Windows 98 and Office 2000 so you go to Staples and buy copies of them. When you get into a server environment, which most small businesses with 5 PC's or more should be doing, then you get into client access licensing, or CAL's. All software that runs on a network involves CAL's; it always has and most likely always will. For this article I'll be focusing on Microsoft, since they produce the bulk of software that businesses use.
Here's an example: you've bought and set up a server with Microsoft Windows 2000 Server. The standard version allows for five client licenses, meaning legally you can only have a maximum of five people connecting to this server. This doesn't mean five people at one time; that means five people on the network. To add more users to this licensing you have to purchase additional CAL's to equal your number of users. For some products, such as our example of Windows 200 Server, Microsoft offers per server licensing wherein this equals the total number of connections at any given time. Per server licensing is available on a select number of Microsoft products, and is infrequently offered by companies. For more information go to www.microsoft.com/enterprise/licensing/ and read what they have to say.
To see what kind of pricing we're talking about, let's look at a business with 25 employees. It's a good size, so they're probably running a server product, a mail product, a firewall and proxy product, and a database product. Now let's see what Microsoft has to offer in terms of pricing and product. Because we're dealing with more than one piece of software, it's cheaper to use Microsoft Back Office Server 4.5, which bundles all their server applications into a cohesive package. I'll be reviewing this shortly, but if your interest is piqued go to www.microsoft.com/backoffice and check it out. An average price for the Back Office suite is $4300, which includes a 5 client CAL. To add 20 more CAL's is another $6000, as each CAL averages $300. Out total cost to get the server software and the licenses is $10300. Ouch.
Because this sounds crazy for a small business, network software companies have released small business versions of their products, notably Novell and Microsoft. Let's look at Microsoft Small Business Server 4.5 ( SBS ) and see what we're getting. We'd still get the programs listed for our business, but with a limit of fifty users. SBS features wizards to guide you through the various setups needed to get a network running. I've reviewed the product before; check out www.iprimus.ca/~tbabble and read it. Cost wise: SBS 4.5 with 5 CAL's is $2200, and an extra 20 CAL's is $2000, giving us a total of $4200. A tidy savings, to be sure.
The key in this is to really look at what you want to be able to do and talk with someone about getting the software to do just that. As well, make sure you leave yourself room to grow. And never forget that without proper licensing, your business can be raided by Microsoft, The Software Publisher's Association and the RCMP. If you're using software to make money, pay for the software. But that's another story.
by Scott VanderPloeg
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