Software Licensing: Advantages over retail software

Essay by nick__whoHigh School, 11th gradeA+, June 2004

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By purchasing software licenses rather than retail software, a company, or institution is able to legally have the rights to use software without having to pay the full retail price for the software package.

Although it seems that companies selling/distributing software licenses are reluctant to have the actual cost of individual licenses on their web pages, I was able to contact Melvyn Myers, of Advance Software Group (http://www.advancesoftware.com.au), an Australian distributor of software licenses for various companies including, Adobe, Macromedia, Corel, and sonic foundry. Mr. Myers was able to supply me with the cost of software licenses for a number of requested software packages.

Software Package Price per lic.

Adobe Photoshop CS (8) $210.10

Adobe Illustrator CS (11) $70.00

Adobe Premiere Pro 7 $175.10

Macromedia Studio MX 2004 $177.00

Microsoft Office 2003 Pro $65

When a license is purchases, only the rights to use the software are purchased, therefore a 'media kit' is also required.

A media kit is simply the installation CD's/DVD's required to install the software, and therefore only one is required.

Media Kit Price

Adobe Photoshop CS (8) $134.00

Adobe Illustrator CS (11) $134.00

Adobe Premiere Pro 7 $134.00

Macromedia Studio MX 2004 $177.00

Microsoft Office 2003 Pro $27

Even when the combined price of a software license and a media kit for each package is compared to the retail price, there is an obvious advantage of purchasing software licenses over retail software.

Software Package Retail Price

Adobe Photoshop CS (8) $1,047.00

Adobe Illustrator CS (11) $853.00

Adobe Premiere Pro 7 $975.00

Macromedia Studio MX 2004 $1,360.00

Microsoft Office 2003 Pro $789.00

In addition, some software companies also offer various levels of technical support for software purchased as individual licenses.

Mr. Myers was unable to supply me with the current price for any Microsoft desktop operating systems...