Adam, that was just my point. It is in Microsoft’s own interest to make licensing fair and simple.

“What i would like as a system administrators (but will never happen anyway) is a very simple licensing model (for example, per employee and software – purchase Exchange based on number of employees, deploy as many Exchange servers you need).”

That’s something I could get behind. It gets a bit frustrating when you start mixing CALs and server licenses. I always get the feeling that I’m paying twice for things. I may not be, but it seems that way sometimes. It’s easy to hesitate on writing another cheque because you’re not sure if you’re paying again for something you already have. If it was simple to determine, then compliance is easy to prove and the cheque easier to write.

The reason why companies pirate Microsoft software is because they have unethical bastards working for them – that may or may not start at the top (but it most likely does).

The reason why companies are underlicensed is because Microsoft licensing model is overly complicated. Of course after spending a bit of time studying it, it all starts to make some kind of sense, but everytime i have to explain it to a customer i realize how silly it is.

Usage based pricing will make everything worse – more approvals needed for spending every spec of money, license handling is even more complicated, etc.

What i would like as a system administrators (but will never happen anyway) is a very simple licensing model (for example, per employee and software – purchase Exchange based on number of employees, deploy as many Exchange servers you need). Also, no license enforcement in any way. No license keys. No activation. No dongles. No license servers. Won’t happen, but it would ensure that the best solution would be deployed, not the one which uses the most awkward licensing loopholes to cut cost.