Summary
If you're a Service Provider with a Microsoft SPLA, you no longer need a License Mobility Addendum. With one interesting but questionable exception.
Most of the time, there is a much better and simpler way to achieve the same results without signing extra paperwork.
The Question
Starting in 2023, we began receiving questions from our clients—service providers. They ask, "Do we need to renew our License Mobility Addendum?"
In most cases, our answer is "no". Here's why:
The Old Way
Microsoft introduced the License Mobility Addendum a long time ago. Its purpose was to allow a service provider's end clients to bring their own licenses onto the provider's servers. To use it, clients have to:
Verify the provider was a License Mobility Partner.
Ensure they have eligible licenses.
Complete and submit a special form to Microsoft.
Send the approved form to the provider, who then has to store it indefinitely in case of an audit.
The New Way
Thanks to the introduction of the Flexible Virtualization Benefit in 2022, end clients can take any licenses on a subscription or with active Software Assurance and use them with any service provider. There's no need to confirm if the provider is a License Mobility Partner.
The Exception
There is, however, one anomaly that may compel you to remain an Authorised License Mobility Partner: RDS CALs.
The Flexible Virtualisation Benefit section in Product Terms states:
Customers with subscription licenses or Licenses with active Software Assurance (including CALs) may use licensed copies of the software on devices, including shared Servers, that are under the day-to-day management and control of Authorized Outsourcers.
Note the "including CALs". At first glance, it may suggest that CALs may be treated individually from the server software and that CALs covered by Software Assurance or subscription may be used on service providers' servers licensed through SPLA. However, according to various [unofficial] explanations from Microsoft, it means that when you use the Flexible Virtualisation Benefit with server licenses, CALs must also be covered by Software Assurance or subscription.
There is another critical clause in Product Terms:
Customer may use its RDS User CALs and User SLs with Windows Server software running in OSEs dedicated to its internal use on either Microsoft Azure Services or the shared or dedicated servers of a License Mobility through Software Assurance Partner for which it has completed and submitted the License Mobility verification form.
Why keep this clause if RDS CALs alone, without server licences, were eligible for the Flexible Virtualisation Benefit?
Also, notably, this permission to use RDS CALs with providers' servers does not extend to the Microsoft Customer Agreement subscriptions (MCA governs CSP and MCA-E). It only works with agreements that have Software Assurance.
In our audit defence practice, the applicability of the Flexible Virtualisation Benefit to subscription RDS CALs has never been questioned, and such CALs, with the necessary evidence, are deducted from service providers' reporting obligations. However, due to the ambiguity of the terms, it's impossible to tell whether that's an actual policy or an oversight. To be safe, if your clients bring their RDS CALs, it's probably a good idea to remain an Authorised License Mobility partner until further clarification.
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