Thanks to anyone with a little experience on this!

I've found the licensing situation with Microsoft MapPoint very confusing.

Here is my situation:

I have a commercial product that relies on MapPoint. I have created an installer that bundles my product with the MapPoint runtime, and transparently installs MapPoint during its install process (silent install). It does prompt for a User Name and Company Name, and feeds this into Microsoft MapPoints command line install.

This install process is very elegant and the customers really like it They used to have to install Microsoft MapPoint individually (with a full license), then install my application, which led to alot of confustion.

Here's my concern, however:

Now that my application distributes with the runtimes integrated, their are no CDKey's/Licenses required to get everything running, and even if I set my computer's clock forward the software continues working.

I WANT ALL OF MY CLIENTS to have LEGAL licenses, so this seems to be an issue. I DO NOT WANT TO USE A RUNTIME LICENSE, I would just like to use FULL Licenses (which I already purchase in bulk).

My commercial product is already very expensive, so the MapPoint full license cost isn't an issue.

How can I apply these FULL Licenses to these successful installations without going through the cumbersome normal MapPoint install? Is there a way to integrate the product key / license? Is it enough simply to send the customer a fully-licensed box to sit on his desk (without installing)?

Thanks in advance,
Austin

bump

- Austin

Hi,

I don't know, but here some thoughts:
- maybe ask the user a CD key as on the mappoint CD.
- ask user to insert a valid mappoint CD

for both of them I don't know how to detect it is valid. but it is just some thoughts.

It's all lawyers and paper.

So long as you cover the licensing 'per install' or per your licensing agreement, as there exist varying licensing now with MP2k4 Fleet licensing vs prior @near retail costs per license.

If you do have MANY clients, I'd explore the bulk licensing from MS, you can cut your base cost down to (iirc, dont' quote me) about $200 per license - maybe it was $230, with a varying US Dollar ? What's $30 anyhoo I suppose.

It's all to you though, it's not like a live theatrical performance where you need to notify Microsoft of every sale you have, but if Gates father comes knocking (he WAS a lawyer as you probably know, alas the shrewd licensing MS cashes in on), just make sure you have your paperwork, that's not legal advice btw, that's just my best understanding from everything I've read, researched and deduced.

It's all on you really, I am happy to learn of the ease of quiet install, I never considered taking installation to that level of user gratification, so, thanks on the idea there, but I DO know the licensing doesn't require you to contact Microsoft back, it's kind of like leaving a store, so long as you have the receipt ? and so long as you paid for it ? no one is going to bother you.

You SHOULD read the fine print on MP licensing though, there are some hidden monsters in there I've found, one ? your clients, and any single license really has a cap on how many maps you can 'print out', I believe it's 10,000 typically, might vary per version. How many companies are running off maps with MS MApPoint day in day out not knowing they've violated the EULA by printing out more than their limit for commercial 'use', then again, MS doesn't have an aggregate counter in there to track this, nor can I think anyone realistically be expected to track this for their client, unless I've just created a legal nightmare for 95% of corporate MP users that was a rock unturned prior to this post.

There are other limitations too, such as MP can not be used to serve up images for a web server.

Good luck, I think you're fine as long as you purchase(d) the license(s) for your client, be aware of some savings if you KNOW you will be selling a lot of them.

Hope this helped

Tim Miltz
Novice user of technologies that are so good ? they're outdated in 9 months with the next snake oil ++.net 3.0 best paradigm change since SNOBOL !