Woody Walton
Microsoft has made several changes to the support mechanisms for the ISV Royalty Licensing Programs recently and I have seen an influx of questions from ISVs and the distributors that support them that having been bouncing around unanswered. I thought I would take this opportunity to educate the masses on the appropriate routes to take to get answers to ISV Royalty licensing questions.
In a nut shell:
The Microsoft Independent Software Vendor Royalty (ISV Royalty) Licensing Program offers Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) a way to license Microsoft® Products (“Products”) and integrate them into a software business application. ISVs then replicate the business solution and distribute a fully licensed solution to their end users (“users”). The ISV Royalty Program is not a reseller program, but is a program that grants ISVs the rights to license Products as part of a Unified Solution.
First of all, if you need overview information on the ISV Royalty Licensing Program, to include an overview please download and view the ISV Royalty Licensing Program Guide. Most basic questions can be answered here.
So where do you go when the Program guide does not answer your question? I recently had a question escalated to me regarding whether the ISV licenses of SQL Server included license mobility like commercial licenses covered by Software Assurance. The answer was ‘NO”, but that is not in the aforementioned guide.
I used the PARTNER MEMBERSHIP FORUM to get the answer. All a partner needs to do is select the ISV-R program as a category and ask a question. The question will be routed accordingly and you will receive a response.
Below are a few screenshots on how to proceed:
Click the “Ask a Question” button on the upper right.
Ask your question making certain to select the appropriate Catagory , Area, and Topic. They are:
Category: Partner membership
Area: Program Questions
Topic: ISV Royalty Program
Incidentally, there are other programs to choose as well. You may want to explore the forum for these as well. A short list is below.
I hope this helps. It helped me!
-Woody