Question reference: S2W-01897
- Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
- Date lodged: 7 August 2003
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Current status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 29 September 2003
Question
To ask the Scottish Executive how much it has spent on Microsoft software licenses in each of the last three financial years.
Answer
The Scottish Executive has in place two licensing agreementswith Microsoft which provide significant levels of discount on published list pricesfor Microsoft software.
We havea Select Agreement which offers participating organisations volume discount on Microsoftlist prices for their software licences. In addition, we have signed, in February2003, a three-year Enterprise Agreement with Microsoft which entitles us to receiveall upgrades for a defined list of software products (mainly MS Office) issued inthe agreement period. The terms of both agreements were negotiated by the Officeof Government Commerce on behalf of all government departments.
Expenditureon Microsoft software licenses in each of the past three financial years has been:
| Year | 2000-01 | 2001-02 | 2002-03 |
| Select Licences | £191,368 | £428,812 | £489,956 |
| Enterprise Agreement | - | - | £911,518 |
| Total | £191,368 | £428,812 | £1,401,474 |
The figuresnoted include Value Added Tax at 17.5% and reflect the discounts the Scottish Executive receives from the licensing agreements.The costs in 2000-01 and 2001-02 do not include any elements of technology refreshupgrades.