Published on January 24th, 2013 | by Roger Chu
Inside Microsoft’s $617M Software Deal with the DOD
Everyone knew that it was a big deal when Microsoft and the Defense Department entered into a $617 million enterprise licensing agreement a few weeks ago. But it turns out that this deal is more than just a big win; it has implications about the federal market at large.
Under this three-year agreement, the Army, Air Force and Defense Information Systems Agency will have a single vehicle for buying Microsoft products such as Office 2013, Sharepoint 2013 Enterprise and Windows 8.
To reach that deal, Microsoft
took a different negotiation tack to reach the deal with the Defense Department and its reseller partner Insight Public Sector.
“Any contract negotiation by nature is going to be a process where we’re smoothing out rough edges and finding out what those good common denominators are,” said Tim Solms, general manager for Microsoft’s Defense Department business. “It has been very collaborative from the beginning.”
Full article by Mark Hoover, Washington Technology