Article

Tech Data to manage Microsoft ISV royalty program

Barbara Darrow, Senior News Director
ARLINGTON, Va. -- Tech Data will now help Microsoft-affiliated ISVs manage their financial relationship with the software giant as part of the Microsoft ISV Royalty Licensing program. Microsoft had previously managed these deals and relationships directly with the ISV partner.

"When an [independent software vendor] writes a software package, it typically has to license SQL Server or something else from Microsoft. They had to tell Microsoft, 'here's what I sold, and here's the royalty,'" said Toby McDuffie, director of software product marketing for Tech Data Corp. "That process will now be managed by distribution, and that gives us an opportunity to engage with ISVs, many of whom are already our customers," McDuffie said.

Indeed, the line between VAR and ISV has increasingly blurred for years. Many software VARs do at least some custom coding for customers, ranging from customizing existing applications to writing scripts to writing full utilities and apps for customers.

Tech Data announced the news this week at its TechEDG Conference in Arlington, Va. It was unclear if Ingram Micro, or other broadline distributors, were also jumping into the ISV royalty management business.

In December 2008, Ingram Micro signed a deal whereby it can

    Requires Free Membership to View

    Login

help hosting providers manage their Service Provider Licensing Agreements (SPLAs) on Microsoft products. Tech Data has yet to follow suit on that, although McDuffie said Tech Data's decision to resell USA.NET's hosted services to partners got it into that market with a partner already entrenched in hosted Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange Server.


Join the conversationComment

Share
Comments

    Results

    Contribute to the conversation

    All fields are required. Comments will appear at the bottom of the article.
    Back to top