Be Wary Of Changes In New SPLA Contracts

Companies that have long relationships with Microsoft know that the company's form licensing agreements have steadily evolved over time, and typically for the worse. If software licensing can be said to have any "natural laws," certainly the First Law could be paraphrased to something like: "If you agree to an inch, be prepared to give a mile." So it is with Microsoft's standard-form Services Provider License Agreement (SPLA).

The most recent iterations of the SPLA include a handful of noteworthy changes, relative to the forms that many current SPLA licensees may have signed at the beginning of their relationships with Microsoft. Those changes include the following:

• End User License Terms (EULTs) now apply to all end users