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Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Licensing

A few pieces of interesting information regarding Microsoft Dynamics licensing that we have recently discovered:

• If you have licensed Dynamics CRM 3.0 as part of an Action Pack subscription it is not possible to add more than 10 active users. This is because since the release of CRM 4.0 the FPP (or full packaged product) CAL that was required is no longer available and it is the only kind of CAL that came with a key. No key means no additional licenses.
• If you have licensed Dynamics CRM 4.0 as part of an Action Pack subscription be warned you are only entitled to the “Workgroup” edition which has but 5 users. This cannot be extended.

Interestingly since Microsoft deems the “Action Pack” to be a subscription-based license you, as the client, do not actually “own” the license and therefore are not eligible for upgrade pricing either. When you hit the 6^th/10^th user (depending on your version) you will be up for the CRM Server license and as many CALs as you have users, since you cannot use the Action Pack CALs on a box product or volume license. This obviously makes the transition very expensive and while you can at least continue to use your Action Pack SQL Server it seems like this group have not been well catered to in the revised licensing model.

By the way – Action Pack users are generally Microsoft partners – not the group I would have chosen to upset, but then they have more money than me…

[UPDATE - With the recently released Microsoft CRM 4.0 there is all new confusion.  See my new post on Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Licensing for more info.]

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 at 4:47 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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1. Rocco - May 1st, 2008 at 10:49 pm
   

   Action Pack Subscriptions are intended to allow MS Partners to “Explore new software, and determine if it is a good fit for your clients.” If you are a Gold Partner, you receive 100 internal use licneses of CRM which are designed.

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