Microsoft's Product Licensing Advisor: Putting Wizardry into the Licensing Decision

This IDC study analyses Microsoft's licensing configuration tool, the Microsoft Product Licensing Advisor (MPLA) as a forerunner of the licensing technology tool market. Customer, partner, and industry are impacted in various ways, and the complement and substitute debate is addressed.

"In one stroke, the MPLA simplified not only the way customers determined their licensing requirements but their decision making on which vendor to go with for their products," asserts Isabel Chapman, research manager, IDC Global Software Business Strategies. "This online wizard served the function of creating a virtual shopping cart of Microsoft products and licenses, with the resulting decreased need for the consumer to go anywhere else."