Is Participation in the MCCA Right for My Department?

The Microsoft Campus Consolidated Agreement (MCCA) allows departments to license Microsoft products on an annual basis, meaning continued use of the products acquired through MCCA requires annual payments. MCCA Faculty and Staff Licenses and some MCCA Online products are licensed based upon the numbers of faculty and staff (Knowledge Workers) in a department rather than the number of computers the department possess. Once all Knowledge Workers of a department are covered, any licensed product can be installed on any number of computers in your department.  Knowledge Workers are counted once a year (typically in April). Any new Knowledge Workers that join an MCCA covered department during the paid term are automatically covered; there is only one true up per year at renewal time.

Server licenses procured via the MCCA can be based on the number of ‘cores’ in a server this varies by product.

MCCA makes financial sense if the number of computers exceeds the number of persons in a department. The unit cost in such a situation, although a recurring annual one, may be lower than the outright purchase price of a product for every computer. However, if the ratio of users to computers is close to 1:1, MCCA may not be the best product choice. In situations where the numbers of computers roughly equals the number of staff and faculty users, the cost of purchasing the products individually via perpetual licensing available through Microsoft Select Plus program may be significantly lower than the cost of the MCCA lease over the life cycle of that product.  This is an individual calculation for each department to consider based on computer/server refresh cycles.