Microsoft licensing is a complex, multi-faceted undertaking,
with different rules and license metrics applying to different
products. In the context of software audits initiated by Microsoft,
it is important to keep in mind the fact that the auditors hired to
perform those investigations are fallible human beings and that
they can (and do) make mistakes in their audit analyses.
Frequently, some of the nuances of those rules are overlooked by
the auditors during the data-collection phase, with critical
questions being left unasked. A good example is the question of
which computers in an environment are used and accessed solely by
developers for development or testing purposes. Many companies with
large development teams purchase MSDN subscriptions that allow
those team members to deploy a large variety of Microsoft products
for development and testing purposes without purchasing additional
licensing. If those developers are working with otherwise expensive
server
