Hanover Buys Wrong Microsoft Licenses Worth €324,000
Posted by DeFuchsIschKeinHaas@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 218 comments
This is a German article translated into English. Source
The city of Hanover purchased Microsoft 365 Education licenses worth €324,000 in 2025 that cannot be used in schools. As reported by the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, the 60,000 licenses do not comply with data protection regulations for children and young people.
When purchasing the licenses, a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) was signed, but the wrong one. Instead of the DPA required for schools, only a standard data processing contract was used.
To make matters worse, no data protection officer reviewed the purchase beforehand, and a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) was only carried out after the licenses had already been bought. Had it been conducted beforehand, the city would likely have signed the stricter school-specific DPA. A DPIA is required whenever the planned processing of personal data is likely to pose a high risk to individuals.
Licenses Must Be Purchased Again
According to the report, Hanover decided to introduce Microsoft software in schools despite criticism, partly arguing that students would need these programs in their future careers, a stance the city intends to maintain.
However, the purchase of the wrong licenses has delayed the rollout of Microsoft 365 Education indefinitely. The city must now first complete a proper DPIA, then select the correct DPA, and only then repurchase the licenses on the correct legal basis.
Microsoft software in schools has been a controversial topic in Germany for years. Data protection responsibilities are often placed on schools themselves, which are frequently overwhelmed by them. Many schools also lack a dedicated IT administrator, with teachers often taking on those responsibilities on top of their regular duties.
mixduptransistor@reddit
There is no way Microsoft wouldn't fix this for them if they asked
ocdtrekkie@reddit
Yeah, I think it's obvious this will get zeroed out and fixed. Just kinda amazing you can spend a third of a million dollars without knowing what you're doing.
hkusp45css@reddit
First week in corporate buying?
ProfessionalSea6268@reddit
Difference is a corporate buyer would be fired. A public sector buyer will be moved sideways or paid to go away. The public sector in almost all countries rewards failure.
MrD3a7h@reddit
Ha! You're hilarious. Smaller scale, but my company bought $50k worth of Jamf licensing and then didn't implement it for a year. Just lit money on fire
BananaSacks@reddit
Way more common than you think. Corporate budgets are not common sense, to the masses. They are bottom line + where does the row and column fit.
There is a 90-100% chance that the person who bought those licenses. If honest with their accountant. Was then asked when it would be implemented. A risk assessment was done (even if only in 1-2 people's heads). And finance advised to keep the licenses.
caffeine-junkie@reddit
Larger scale here. Company purchased about 4.x MM worth of server and SAN hardware with full 5 year 24/7 4hr onsite support; as in they would send a tech with hardware to fix any hw failures. It all sat in boxes in the datacentre acruing daily storage charges for a year and a half waiting for management to negotiate some BS I don't even recall anymore, but probably totalled a fraction of what just the storage fees were.
The implementation took another year on top due to stuff like things were missing from the initial purchase and had to go back and forth in negotiations, scope changes as people changed their minds what to do with the hardware multiple times (things like hyverv vs esx vs xen or boot from SAN vs os on hdd), and forgetting basic stuff like ordering internet connectivity to the rack.
MadMonksJunk@reddit
I've declined offers on several contracts because during initial proposal and spec I ran into things like "hardware waiting install" ordered years prior boxes sitting in with not even a bill of materials available.
Walked into a "lab facility" two pallets of UPS and 30amp dryer plugs along the walls they expect to use to power their racks (racks that were supposedly arriving next week) the fact both were installed 3 years prior and literally no one noticed until I asked. When I saw SUN boxes in the far corner I noped out before I finished my coffee.
ncc74656m@reddit
We did the same thing at a prior company. Our CTO got a golden parachute after taking kickbacks from the outsourcer he advised they use. Fortunately he also never actually got the real kickbacks and since it wasn't really exactly on the up and up, he couldn't exactly sue for them. Best possible outcome really.
Kreeos@reddit
Technically not the buyers' fault. They got the right licenses and handed it off to the next team who sat on it for a year.
MrD3a7h@reddit
This would be true if the people buying the licenses and implementing the product weren't the same people.
mmmaaaatttt@reddit
My company has 10s of thousands of dollars per month worth of CRM/ERP licenses assigned to ex employees. Everyone knows but if the licensing cost suddenly drops, questions will be asked.
DrunkenGolfer@reddit
I got hired to build a deployment solution for a bank after their own internal efforts were making no progress. I found they had already bought “refresh” hardware to replace their old stuff and those 500 desktops had been aitting in a warehouse for four years. Obsolete before the first one was deployed.
team_blacksmith@reddit
Where I work we bought alertus, I got it setup ready to deploy tested and every , it is now a race between us paying the yearly subscription and SLT saying yes deploy it to everyone FML
chuckaholic@reddit
Same thing happened to me, but in the Army. I got assigned to a supply office and they had a building full of HP desktops, new in box, 4 years old. The Company was using DOS machines in every office and these undeployed PCs had Windows 98. The year was 2000.
luke10050@reddit
Just a money furnace?
No_Ionger_interested@reddit
Reminds me of my previous workplace. When I joined, they had purchased a new firewall cluster (of 2 firewalls) 6 months earlier. It was sitting there in a storage area while powered on. When I left the company about 4 years later, they were in middle of migration from the old cluster to new one. A year later, they were still in middle of migrating from the old cluster to the new one.
This was not truly public sector as such, but rather government-owned company.
technobrendo@reddit
Congratulations team, I would like to introduce to you all MICROSOFT OFFICE 2019!!!!
PlayingDoomOnAGPS@reddit
And they were paying to store them on top of that!
DrunkenGolfer@reddit
Yep
Daneel_@reddit
Only a year? I've seen multi-million dollar per year license purchases left on the table over 5 years later.
ProfessionalSea6268@reddit
If the company decides to do that then fine. It is their money. Projects often get cancelled or delayed. And if someone fucked up they get fired. If they don’t the company who make the money make that choice.
Public bodies spend (waste) tax payer’s money and so very rarely do they get even chastised. More often than not it’s forgotten. Easy to waste someone else’s money.
MrD3a7h@reddit
But you said, "Difference is a corporate buyer would be fired."
I guarantee you that is not typically the case.
ProfessionalSea6268@reddit
The original post was about someone buying the wrong licences. Not just a delayed or paused project.
Someone wastes hundreds of thousands on a fuck up they get fired in the private world. With very few exceptions.
Public sector waste this and more due to institutional incompetence and get promoted. I had the misfortune of working foe a quasi public agency once and saw it with my own eyes.
In either if someone spends money on a project that ultimately gets canned or delayed then they don’t get fired. The manager might but not the buyer who did no wrong.
charleswj@reddit
Except they didn't "waste" any money because it will get converted to the correct license at no additional cost.
turbofired@reddit
this guy is just a troll, and by guy I mean bot.
charleswj@reddit
Do you know what a bot is?
turbofired@reddit
sorry, not you, the person you replied to.
fnordhole@reddit
They just keep changing what they said.
Synergythepariah@reddit
They can just raise their prices to make up the loss anyway.
charleswj@reddit
So can the government 😏
buffs1876@reddit
Jive ass mutha fucka
Velocireptile@reddit
I saw similar regular examples of extravagant waste at a private company where all the purchasing managers happened to have the same last name as the owner.
fnordhole@reddit
A tale as old as time...
hkusp45css@reddit
I watched a guy spend $40MM on bio-bugs to clean out wastewater wells and had them shipped to a place where they all died.
He was promoted 2 years later to a Directorship.
dartdoug@reddit
Your story reminded me of the problem small towns around here have with Canada Geese poop fouling their parks and ponds. Many towns hire a vendor (Goose Chasers) that brings a dog (usually a border collie) to the parks; the dog runs after the Geese, forcing them to flight. After a while, the Geese learn where not to land because the dog will show up eventually.
One town ran the numbers and determined that it would be more cost effective to purchase a dog that had been trained to chase the geese. So the Town Council spent several thousand $$ to purchase the trained dog. The plan was for the dog to chase geese during the day, then go home with the Public Works Manager at night as a family pet.
On day one, the dog was let loose in one of the parks.
The dog was never seen again.
ljapa@reddit
I had worked at an SMB that was on former farmland in a distant suburb of a large metro area. Half the property was a large pond that was a protected wetland. There were tax breaks because of that.
The geese were rampant. Geese shit all over the parking lot. Loud, obnoxious, filled with hate.
Eventually, we came up with a solution. We had to get permits and hired an outside firm. In the spring, when the geese were nesting, this firm went to every nest and shook the eggs, which killed the embryos.
No eggs hatched. There were no geese for 15 years.
The belief is, the geese understood there was something dangerous in the water or the forage that meant they were unable to reproduce, so they avoided the area and somehow communicated that.
dartdoug@reddit
There are videos on YouTube showing people being attacked by Canada Geese while walking in a park or to their cars. Nasty f*ckers.
There was a traffic light near me where wild turkeys would roost nearby. When a car stopped for the red light the turkeys would start pecking at the tires. Some people would panic in fear and not continue even when the light turned green. When the crossing guard is on that post I've seen him double over laughing at the scene.
Then one day, the turkeys were gone. I asked the Police Chief if he knew what happened to them. He grinned a bit and said "No idea."
oldspiceland@reddit
Unlikely. Someone approving purchases in the third of a million range is going to be “management” staff and so blame will be shifted until it falls on someone who likely called out the error ahead of time or onto the vendor. Management cannot make mistakes.
ProfessionalSea6268@reddit
They should rely on their tech teams to confirm the order is correct before committing. Either that didn’t happen or they were rold wrong info. Either way someone screwed up and it could have cost the tax payer money. Whether Microsoft back down is irrelevant as if they screw up with this they will have screwed up other things and brushed then under the carpet. This was just too big to hide.
oldspiceland@reddit
There’s no technical issue in this case, and the article clearly states that Hannover didn’t have the correct agent look over the agreement before it was agreed to.
That being said, the idea that it’s the licenses that are unusable is also sort of dumb because the only thing wrong here is a data processing agreement. The licenses ultimately are the same no matter what. This is mostly being turned into a story by people who want to move away from Microsoft and are trying to hurt the politicians involved in this.
ProfessionalSea6268@reddit
Wow. Well this has shows us who works in public sector and enjoys the benefits of being protected against their own incompetence and who works private and does their job right or else they get demoted or fired.
And a bot? Fuck me sideways. Do you people who scream bot and AI slop not have any ability to think anymore? Someone has a one-sided view and you think that is evidence of being a bot. I’m sorry but what world do you live in where everyone likes everything and has the same views? Aren’t most views one-soded in that people aupport A vs B? Ah yes, the public sector is calling you as you sure fit their mould.
walkalongtheriver@reddit
It was probably that that did it for you. That and people have countless stories (me included) of people in private businesses being moved around or even "rewarded" with promotions despite huge fuck ups.
Just take the L. Your post reeks of "business good, govt bad" and people called you out for it. Not a big deal.
ProfessionalSea6268@reddit
I’ve worked in both my friend and without exception government/public is a complete shit show for IT and anything else.
And we should all be concerned anout epic waste and incompetence when it’s tax money that mays for it.
I actually saw someone sign a contract that forced the local authority to pay 7 times the cost for something IT related than what I could go straight to market and get for 1/7th of the cost without negotiating or offering long term business etc. It’s wasteful ineptitude or corruption. And I know for a fact the person responsible still works there in a far more senior role. When I pointed it out at the time I was laughed at and told “that is how it works here”.
I can choose to buy from Company A or Company B and if I think they are inept or hile prices to cover up bad decisions then I take my business elsewhere. Cannot do that with public bodies.
axonxorz@reddit
If it's the first time, only if they have a poor manager (which, tbf, decent chance). Why would you fire that person, you just unintentionally spent $xxx to educate them? You will see zero return on that 'investment' if you can the employee.
I've worked on both sides of this, waste is proportional to org throughput, nothing more. Corporations spend bigmoney convincing you that they're lean (don't think about them spending that money though, that's not waste, or something), but they waste lots too. It's just that a good chunk public services are necessarily large because society is.
Dal90@reddit
Enterprises do not make profits on efficiency.
The make their profits on spreading inefficient costs across a massive number of transactions.
It is an entirely different business and financial model from how your local small business operates.
meikyoushisui@reddit
If the same person manages to do it a second time, there are serious management problems that have nothing to do with the employee
turbofired@reddit
ohhh you have four numbers after your username; guys it's an engagement bot.
ProfessionalSea6268@reddit
Learn to think for yourself instead of following the herd and shouting bot and AI slop because you think it makes you look good.
Hunter_Holding@reddit
I think you misspelled promoted.
$3mil on tanium because SCCM rollout was too slow, some mid-levels made snap decision at a trade show and got CIO approval.
Effectively used it for its security tooling strengths twice over 3 years, and I was the one who both deployed it, and entirely uninstalled it from the environment.
clubfungus@reddit
What color is the sky on your world?
CrotchetyHamster@reddit
Oh... you think corporations are better at controlling waste than governments. How quaint.
wiwtft@reddit
Government employees always catching strays like this. I have seen so many people covered for time after time in corporations.
19610taw3@reddit
A former employer of mine spent close to $1,000,000 over the course of 3 years for reporting software that never got used.
rodface@reddit
Shelfware!
rodface@reddit
Why should they be fired? Why is there any certainty here as to who made a mistake, if any was made? Did the person who sent the final e-mail/wrote the final signature/clicked the final button after filling the final form fields---did they have correct information and training? Did the person who directed them give accurate instructions and did they have correct information? Did the system that the order/request was entered into function as designed, and was it configured as intended/understood by both parties?
I don't mean to roll off a huge rant at you but anyone and everyone in this sub should know that everything that happens around an IT system is just one event in a massive chain of events and a failure at any point in that chain can have unintended and even catastrophic results that are completely out of scale with the incompetence or culpability of the person(s) who triggered the chain of events.
Ferretau@reddit
Not always fired instead they get promoted.
scriptmonkey420@reddit
I work for a VERY large company. We hired a whole team to do some migration work. They fired the entire team and moved the work to my team. I can only imagine the money they burned on that.
ProfessionalSea6268@reddit
As long as it’s private they can do as they please.
It’s the public worker wasting money due to ineptitude and facing little or no consequences and often being rewarded. Those funded by the tax payers should be held to a much higher standard.
scriptmonkey420@reddit
It's still so confusing the amount of money they will burn and then complain there is no money for raises...
FlibblesHexEyes@reddit
Back towards the end of Windows XP's life, I was working in Government. We spent 18 months and probably 12 engineers time building the Windows 7 SOE that was meant to replace XP.
The work was 95% complete, we had already started small test rollouts.
The project was cancelled - and some of the engineers were let go.
We ended up staying on XP and paying Microsoft for the extended patching that they were offering - the one that cost double every year.
Only in the last 6 months of that extended support period (which was 3 years long) did management finally allow us to roll out Windows 7.
Talk about burning money.
Smiling_Jack_@reddit
>Difference is a corporate buyer would be fired.
Oh you sweet summer child.
NoPossibility4178@reddit
Especially when it's tax payer money.
Shanga_Ubone@reddit
Even worse, it's government buying, with German privacy rules, no less.
Very easy to see how a mistake like this could be made.
technobrendo@reddit
They used a value added reseller, minus the value-add
peeinian@reddit
There’s a really old saying that even Microsoft doesn’t understand Microsoft licensing. Also, no two Microsoft licensing “experts” will give you the same answer so if you don’t like the first one just call back and ask someone else.
72kdieuwjwbfuei626@reddit
This doesn’t seem like a licensing issue, more like a compliance issue. It sounds like they could use the licenses just fine as far as Microsoft is concerned, they just aren’t allowed to by regulations they have to follow.
Gek1188@reddit
There will be other ways to fix this instead of waiting for the expiration of the licenses.
This is a paperwork issue but EDU licenses and Enterprise licenses are different SKUs so the article is correct in that the licenses need to be re-purchased but they should be credited for the remaining period.
72kdieuwjwbfuei626@reddit
Where did you get that they bought Enterprise licenses?
Gek1188@reddit
If they aren’t enterprise licenses this is a big nothing burger. You just modify the DPA.
someoneusedkonimex@reddit
I've heard this saying as well, but for Oracle.
MidnightBlue5002@reddit
former oracle employee here ... 100% this. On projects, we'd quote a price, customer gets mad, we were told to drop it 20% without blinking an eye. Then, employee gets yelled at for EOY fiscal "shortfalls." Screw Oracle.
jks513@reddit
Microsoft licensing seems designed to make sure you mess up.
ScoobyGDSTi@reddit
For the big contracts and clients, Microsoft will even send specialists to review your environment and help reduce your bills. They also don't pay retail or anywhere close to it prices. It's the SME customers that get screwed.
420GB@reddit
These days their licensing experts may actually give you the same (wrong) answers because they just openly copy and paste from Copilot and are proud of it.
Brazilator@reddit
I’ve done the Microsoft licensing for a large global corporate entity. When I spoke to the Microsoft licensing team they referred to it as “the dark arts”
OregonTechHead@reddit
This has nothing to do with MS licensing complexities though. This doesn't even really have anything to do with the MS licenses itself.
The buyer simply didn't read the contract they signed.
Carribean-Diver@reddit
M$ deliberately makes their licensing obscure. They have specialists that monitor how well their licenses are understood, and when it reaches critical mass (>=0.002%), they make sweeping changes.
Arudinne@reddit
I wonder if asking an LLM to try and understand Microsoft Licenses would trigger skynet.
IAmMarwood@reddit
Not joking but I asked Copilot to clarify an MS Teams Telephone license issue I had just the other week… it got it wrong.
Arudinne@reddit
I've found Copilot to be the most inaccurate out of all the LLMs I've used.
IAmMarwood@reddit
Agreed, but I thought it would at least be well trained on Microsoft info.
Then again I’ve had it make up Powershell cmdlets that dont exist so I should have known better.
Mindestiny@reddit
Cant be less accurate than asking a Microsoft Platinum Partner to try to understand them!
iloveurarse@reddit
As someone who is high up in the -archy of MS, we don't fucking understand what those fucking quant lawyers with their time but they are good at pissing everyone off when they are done.
nosimsol@reddit
Haha holy moly
charleswj@reddit
Do you publish your fantasies anywhere we can purchase?
4guser@reddit
Its more common than you think. Very often the buyer has no idea what they are buying and consultants bs them.
gokarrt@reddit
rookie numbers, meta spent like 100 billion on the metaverse.
bruhgubgub@reddit
Half a million dollars, this is in euros
Oricol@reddit
€1 is $1.17 as of writing this.
turbofired@reddit
good buy, dollar
aes_gcm@reddit
It seems fairly resilient to our own efforts to fuck it up at every opportunity.
charleswj@reddit
Nope
jasieknms@reddit
Hey, this probably won't be read by many but just to explain some things and how the process works:
In germany anything related to GOV purchases (be it edu/city/actual gov) can become very complicated very fast.. and the process by itself is very annoying because of laws.
I'll try to simplify what most likely happened here and how it normally works (some terms might sound weird since there's no 1:1 translation):
once you try to purchase something above a certain sum you are required to "auction it off" to companies, the company (usually if it's related to MS licenses you can assume it's a MSP) will basically contact MS and try to buy licenses on your behalf and do a lot of the paperwork for you... now this in itself isn't too deep but this involves many parties:
School itself (Depending on size/type there can be multiple people involved)
Administration for school/city administration
Whoever handled/created the "auction" (Ausschreibung)
MSP
MS
This already can become a mess with "just" those involved, but usually you also have the city if it's not higher edu and even if it's higher edu the City will also sometimes get involved.
So in the end the error could have happend at any point and it's hard to justify where it really went wrong and media won't exactly know much about it - since for them it's just news.
I worked in german Gov for a while and currently work in higher edu.. so unfortunately I know exactly how shit those processes are.
They were originally meant to help support local companies so they can get their sales and we spend money "responsibly" but usually it's the same 1-2 companies that actually get the big contracts because they can offer it for the cheapest, same for the selection process... it's usually fully based on price and the contract goes to whoever gives us the best offer.
I wouldn't really blame anyone but blame the process itself and how it works, it's a horrendous system and just makes things really tedious and annoying, I'll give you a recent example. We got a offer/hint from a company that was trying to sell their laptops - we got interested and got a very GENEROUS offer for 80 laptops.
long story short: We had to go through the process I described above and had no way of directly purchasing those laptops because the price went above (X), so a distributor bought out those laptops for the offer we recieved... and sold them to us for 20k more : ).
It's the same for when I or my colleagues find some really good online offers, we cannot purchase them and we HAVE to go through this process everytime we want to make bigger purchases and end up paying usually 2-3x more than what we'd pay if we were able to purchase it directly..
/rant over
hope I could provide some insights, but yeah the process is just horrendous and honestly by our strict data laws technically you aren't allowed to use 365 office at all in EDU/GOV, what we offer in edu nowadays is a simple QR code so students can buy the edu licenses themselves for 12euros/year.
angrydeuce@reddit
Heh, let me introduce you to the guy that ordered almost 6 figures worth of noname printers with only a qr code off of temu or ali baba or whatever the fuck for drivers, which when scamned took you to a site written in Mandarin and wanted you to login with your microsoft account to download them...
Apparently he thought it was ridiculous that there wasnt a printer at every desk and figured he would solve the problem himself since "IT is incompetent".
Boy was that a fun call when my field guy called me up like, "Uh, are we really deploying these?" and I responded "Deploying what? You were just supposed to rack and patch down a new switch..."
major_winters_506@reddit
Hahaha, oh boy, that’s a good one. Talk to me when you spend millions and have no idea what you’re doing. It happens waaaaaaaay too often.
ocdtrekkie@reddit
I haven't risen to this level of incompetency yet.
Tetha@reddit
And if you already have that other product as well, taking care of your customers when they fucked up is the easiest way of building customer loyality. Pay the difference in prices and a one-euro sized "oh no" fee.
tejanaqkilica@reddit
Welcome to the German public sector.
Fallingdamage@reddit
I wonder who their VAR is.
Also, instead of having to buy all the licensing again, couldnt they just license the additional components to get compliant for less than buying all the licensing again?
We have a ton of employees who are on Business Basic. We need to have Entra P1 apply to everyone, so instead of buying Business Premium for everyone, we just buy Basic and a P1 license for those users. Saves about five dollars of Premium but when you have a lot of licenses, it adds up.
Pyrostasis@reddit
Just wait till they spend MORE than a million with out even bringing IT in!
ncc74656m@reddit
Microsoft really does bend over backwards for stuff like this - fixing licensing and such for NFPs as long as you're in good faith with them. Our Azure credit renewal slipped through the cracks and they just retroactively applied some of the credit during the renewal period to bills that already processed, and applied a refund for us on the charges. You just have to ask and chase them.
Catsrules@reddit
I would say maybe 50/50. This is Microsoft licensing we are talking about.
Khue@reddit
Yeah when you buy at volume like this you get better service.
ddadopt@reddit
Reading between the lines, the license term is probably going to be expired before they cut through all the red tape. €324k, 60,000 licenses, on a one year term is €0.45/month/user, and they bought the licenses in 2025, so the term is at least half over by now. Add in the time to do their assessment again, and... yeah.
This article is deflecting the primary blame on MS when the blame obviously belongs on the local government.
FlyingBishop@reddit
MS had better take the blame and thank them for it. MS is not going to be in Germany in 10 years at the rate things are going.
Nasa_OK@reddit
Make that 100 years. We take a while to implement changes
Martin8412@reddit
Did yous finish the Telex to Fax migration yet?
Nasa_OK@reddit
Wait let me morse a ticket to the I department (we are working on the T)
baltimoresports@reddit
This falls on the sales rep and their team as much as the city. Gotta assume Microsoft fixes this.
OregonTechHead@reddit
Should the rep have sent the correct document? yes, absolutely.
But if you do something wrong at your job, is "but Bob sent me the wrong file!" really an excuse?
Especially when assessing contracts is a core function of that job
Drywesi@reddit
Sales, getting away with incompetence and/or outright lies since 1880
Gek1188@reddit
Every company is responsible for their own governance.
resonantfate@reddit
Allow me to introduce you to a man named Ea-nāṣir.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complaint_tablet_to_Ea-n%C4%81%E1%B9%A3ir
(Wiki link is cursed because of all the non-standard characters in his name).
After_Working@reddit
It’s not that much admin, we’ve know Microsoft not switch over 50k licenses as the wrong sub was brought. They just fall back onto their contract wording.
C2D2@reddit
Are you being sarcastic? There's no way Microsoft will turn down the opportunity for additional revenue. And this is an opportunity. Several years ago I bought 560k worth of SQL licensing under a select agreement because I was told by Microsoft that was the only model our use case fit. A year later they said this was wrong when we were out of compliance and we had to move to a service provider agreement, paying over 100k monthly. TLDR - fuck Microsoft.
rodface@reddit
This is exactly my reaction. The admin or purchaser chose the wrong form option when carrying out the purchase. Some property of the licenses is not the correct one. Do we:
deadzol@reddit
Sorry gave ya the down vote because I had a client spend $34k worth of licenses only for Microslop say sorry you should have known better now give us more money without crediting the previous purchases.
pdp10@reddit
At least they can sell the first licenses at a loss and recoup part of the money.
Unknown-U@reddit
Exactly, fix it or switch to open source out of spite. ;)
BlackV@reddit
Germany has that mandate already and are in the process (and France and a couple of others too)
Soon ^^tm
RainStormLou@reddit
I doubt it. Microsoft is the first one to tell paying customers to get fucked. They'd only do it because it's a news story for PR points but they'd never assist normally.
jefbenet@reddit
Or just upon finding this had happened, for basic PR.
CeC-P@reddit
You spelled "would" wrong.
VIDGuide@reddit
AI chat bot said no..
ConspicuouslyBland@reddit
That’s a big lack of vision. The switch has begun, they will use some open source alternative, their students will lag behind due to this choice.
hyper9410@reddit
I don't understand this argument.
No one would expect you to get a driver license for a specific car brand because it is the most sold car or market leader. The school training should prepare you for the concepts that are used in an office suit, not where what button is to achive a outcome.
If you work with some ERP suit and switch companies, are you only applying to companies that use the same ERP suit.
ConspicuouslyBland@reddit
Then there's also no need to these programs in those students future careers as per the schools statement, so they can choose the correct programs, not Microslop.
nextyoyoma@reddit
Genuine question, what alternative would make them not “lag behind?”
j0nquest@reddit
There isn’t one. There are indeed alternatives, but there’s no sign that they’re on the cusp of putting out the Office fire that’s been burning for the last 30+ years.
Entegy@reddit
I find hard to believe they asked Microsoft directly and Microsoft said they wouldn't fix it. Mistakes happen and they're usually pretty good on letting you fix it.
Some middleman MSP who doesn't wanna do the work maybe?
GeekBrownBear@reddit
As an MSP, wtf is a MSP doing with a 60k seat contract AND doesn't know what they are doing. I mean yeah, low barrier to entry and a lot of MSPs are not great but at this level, color me confused
ctjameson@reddit
Oh boy, you haven’t worked at a lot of MSP’s have you? There’s some really bad ones out there. The incompetence can get waaaaaaay up there for account managers that aren’t technical but are “good at sales”
GeekBrownBear@reddit
Nothing THAT big. A single 60k seat contract is beyond the point where I would suggest an outsourced IT staff could be useful. There is a tipping point where internal is the better move!
Mindestiny@reddit
Some middleman MSP who told them it would be $200k cheaper if they bought this other SKU without having a goddamn clue if it met regulatory requirements.
I have yet to encounter an MSP in my entire career that was more honest than a used car salesman. It's always a hustle. Always.
ncc74656m@reddit
We had one MSP here (we're an NFP) and while I think they were technically honest, they also weren't really up to the task, and just like literally every MSP, they would bill you out the ass for simple tasks like building a print server (which they didn't even finish and do right). I don't see any point in working with MSPs unless you have absolutely no choice, and even then, it really will not be cheaper than having an internal IT team if you need anything beyond basic support (which will still suck).
ctjameson@reddit
Mine definitely doesn’t do this, but its clients are already spending enough we don’t need to pus extra junk. The MRR is already excellent.
OregonTechHead@reddit
This isn't a different SKU. This is just an agreement on how their data gets processed.
They have the correct licensing, they just can't use them because they don't have the correct DPA in place.
This is just rage bait
knifeproz@reddit
It’s always the 1% commenter crowd who talk out their ass
unwisest_sage@reddit
That's because they have to comment on everything.
turbofired@reddit
lots of bots in here. engagement farming
pdp10@reddit
Wouldn't the reseller make more money if the customer bought more-expensive licenses?
GeekBrownBear@reddit
There are some of us! Honesty and ethics are the foundation of my MSP because I have been in your shoes. All my years in internal IT, I've seen some BS. Decided I wanted to do better than the crazy I had to endure.
Tsiox@reddit
Yeah... this is some reseller in the middle is getting pinched because they made a bad recommendation and the school didn't doublecheck. Microsoft doesn't care until you get to a human, and this kind of thing will get to a human. Microsoft will take care of this the moment this gets above drone level.
mattiasso@reddit
GO LINUX NOW or personally pay for the damages, then we’ll see how “the kids need Microsoft for their future” stands
xSchizogenie@reddit
Vegan spotted.
Tai9ch@reddit
Software veganism makes more ethical sense than the no-meat kind.
xSchizogenie@reddit
But no one asked for it.
Tai9ch@reddit
If that were true then nobody would be mentioning it.
It's important to understand that there are other people in the world and they each have their own perspective and views.
Further, it's almost certainly the case that some of the strongly held views that other people have that you "don't care about" are both correct and would be valuable to you if you seriously considered them.
xSchizogenie@reddit
No man, nothing of what the thread is about if solved by his comment. Literally not one single thing.
Tai9ch@reddit
When there's a story about someone hitting themselves and how it hurts, "lol, they should stop hitting themselves" is always on topic.
xSchizogenie@reddit
In your restricted point of view maybe lol
mattiasso@reddit
I’m on a carnivore diet but hey, sure
xSchizogenie@reddit
Vegan of operating systems, sorry.
TheFumingatzor@reddit
Of to r/tja .
Civil_Inspection579@reddit
This is a process failure more than a technical one. Skipping DPIA and proper review before purchase is what caused it. Once compliance is involved, small contract differences can have huge consequences.
Vodor1@reddit
My translation of the article said they bought "Fake" licenses, and it doesn't even say what licenses they had.
1) Did they buy them from a 3rd party site, probably termed agreement ones.
2) Education licenses that can't be used in schools makes no sense at all.
2) Delaying it indefinitely? No, you can still get free licenses almost instantly that give you nearly all the features required in web form, use BYOD for now or something.
The whole thing doesn't add up.
ifpfi@reddit
I don't think it matters what document someone "signs" if you chose a cloud service like O365 for Email and private data it will eventually get leaked. MS doesn't do anything special with your servers when you sign a document, they just outsource all the administration and support to a foreign country that doesn't care or have an idea what privacy is. If you really want the data to be private you should host it yourself!
Sweet-Sale-7303@reddit
I just translated the article it says the data protection agreement which is a piece of paper you and Microsoft sign I believe and not a license. I would think they just have to sign a new one.
Mindestiny@reddit
Correct, the DPA is a legal agreement between Microsoft and whatever org licensed the tenant. I've signed many a DPA in my day.
It sounds like the school didn't have anyone who actually understood what a DPA is or could clearly read the legalese to ensure compliance.
Vodor1@reddit
So this is a German law thing? Might be why it doesn't quite add up to me.
OregonTechHead@reddit
It's a law thing in any country and industry with data protection rules in place.
It's not really a thing in the US because the majority of corporations just sign off on the default.
But if you work in a regulated industry (schools being the example here), you and MS agree on how their data gets processed. In this case, it likely limits what MS can do with that data to protect kids.
Vodor1@reddit
Yes I understand, I was wondering if Germany had stricter laws when it came to student data compared to the rest of the EU. Quite sure they have stricter laws on various things so a presumption was made on my part.
Still doesn't quite add up on what the licenses didn't comply with, I do a lot of education licenses and genuninely intrigued.
Nandulal@reddit
The laws where they are being used are not the same as where you are...
Vodor1@reddit
Thanks, I know which is what I’m trying to understand :)
OregonTechHead@reddit
The licenses are fine. They just can't use them until there's a proper DPA in place.
Vodor1@reddit
Yeah I just read it again that the licenses don't comply with the DPA, still seems like something that can be fixed.
Advanced_Vehicle_636@reddit
Oh, 100% this can be fixed. OP is being a dunce (sorry, only saying half-truths) by saying the licenses need to be re-bought.
Having seen some first-hand, million-dollar fucks ups from my colleagues with respect to buying services from Microsoft.., Normally a support ticket and a call with them will get it cleaned up if it was recent (or very obviously not used).
Example: One of our senior analysts committed to ingesting 1TB/day of data in our dev environment. We don't even use that much in prod. It was caught a month later when we got our bill for $75k + the normal costs. A quick call to MIcrosoft Support and they undid the contract and voided/reduced that part of the bill to what we should've paid.
Even if they bought the wrong license (and it sounds like the license is fine, they just need a different data processing agreement), Microsoft would just transfer the licenses and bill or credit the difference. Pissing off Government entities doesn't usually end well for the entity pissing off the Government.
rodface@reddit
this reads as the definition of a clerical error. And a vendor that will not work with you to fix a clerical error is a vendor that you should not be buying anything from.
Nandulal@reddit
I think you are misunderstanding the issue here.
the 60,000 licenses do not comply with data protection regulations for children and young people.
mimes_piss_me_off@reddit
I can't really speak to the other two points, but number two confused me as well - the take I got after several rereads was that it was less a case of an educational license, and more a case of needing the super-duper license that complies with the much stricter privacy laws in Germany.
Vodor1@reddit
If they needed something bigger, upgrades on licenses if they're in the same family are still possible for the most part. Perhaps not in this case as it doesn't say what the license was.
lukistellar@reddit
Our MSP also ordered the wrong license for us. I insisted we need KMS-Keys for something like non-persistent terminal servers, but was overruled by management. We used our VDI with the license warning showing for about a year or something before wie bought the right licenses lmao
duranfan@reddit
So much for German efficiency.
I'll show myself out.
jaredearle@reddit
And this is why European countries are developing their own open source alternatives.
Tai9ch@reddit
Somehow I don't think organizations that spend a third of a million dollars without knowing what they're buying can effectively develop software.
OregonTechHead@reddit
Because they're employees don't follow procedure and review documents?
This has nothing to do with MS, or even tech
Phreakiture@reddit
This really sucks. I feel like the rest of Germany should follow the example we keep hearing about how Schleswig-Holstein has moved everything over to Linux.
shimoheihei2@reddit
This should be championed by individual educators, getting the kids to install Libre Office instead, especially if there's corporate lobbying going on at a higher level.
pepper_man@reddit
This is on the licensing specialist who sold them the licenses.
DeviousFeline@reddit
Ask Microsoft very politely to swap them
SofterBones@reddit
I don't think OP is working for city of Hanover and was asking how to fix it.
DeviousFeline@reddit
A man can dream. I could put it on LinkedIn.
spookendeklopgeesten@reddit
Love this attitude
speedeep@reddit
Hanover needs to call Munich for some advice...
No-Land-672@reddit
Schleswig-Holstein would be the better addressee.
skywalker-11@reddit
Sadly Munich switched backed to mainly Microsoft and the Limux project is mostly dead
willdeleteacct1year@reddit
This is the most Microsoft licensing shit I have seen in my life their licenses have been so overly complicated and fucking retarded for as long as I have done IT.
par for the course.
I am 100% positive at this point in my career not a single person even ones who work for Microsoft know if they have the right licenses for their application, they all just prey they do and go unnoticed for the random bullshit gotcha cause that fucks you and says you have the wrong one.
eri-@reddit
When you are a high level MS partner org you can get them to customize an E5 offering for your environment. You can include SKU's which are normally sold seperately and so on.
Which is what we did, cuts the price down by a quite a bit and makes sure you actually use everything you pay for.
In exchange, they do regularely shove some other "required" licenses down our throat though.
iama_bad_person@reddit
Should have chosen another example, Office365 E3 + EMS E3 clearly covers your use case. All you want without Enterprise or Defender. Hell, M365 E3 would cover all of it if you wanted one licence only, but that does come with Enterprise licences. We have recently moved the bulk of our day-to-day staff to E3's with WMS to cover CA policies.
HevosenPaskanSyojae@reddit
Just wait couple of months and they all have been changed and you're as clueless as everyone else.
FarceMultiplier@reddit
MS would absolutely solve this for them. We had a similar issue for about $100k and they fixed it the same day.
RevolutionaryWorry87@reddit
What a dumb article.
Completely factually incorrect, and mostly easily remediated and MS would help you solve. Even then, just have a half decent CSP.
Beneficial-Gift5330@reddit
If this isn’t fixed by Monday, you should delete your account
Bogus1989@reddit
this reminds me of a time when a friend of mine, basically found himself building out an ente IT Department, after building up the company as employee #1 and training replacements....I was working with them as a consultant....and I found out that their "IT guy" (he was just a guy who was the most tech savvy at the car dealership group he used to work)had been buying LTSC licenses., well he was dumb enough to mention it out loud....and after my friend kept stumbling upon little "surprises" no one knew about or was tracking....this one was good enough to actually get some kickback from the owner.
Yeah dude was just getting them from somewhere ( he never would reveal the truth) probably cuz it was ebay or some shit. LMAO. God that guy was goofy. I would treat him as an equal since the day we met, and briefed him before and get his thoughts on the subject, before scheduling a meeting with the ceo. never a peep.....but then later the ceo just tells me he basically comes around later complaining about how it was wrong. Like I wonder if the guy understood why I was hired LMAO.
JerkyChew@reddit
Back in 2000 or so the company I worked for had to pay Microsoft around $300k because we thought that the included CD/sticker on all the Dell PCs and laptops we bought covered our OS licenses. They didn't; they were OEM licenses and we were a business (about 500 employees) and Microsoft descended upon us with great vengeance and furious anger.
Fun random side fact: The day that the great tech bust happened, the number 2 stock drop was AAPL and we were number one! Go us!
That company is long dead.
Bogus1989@reddit
Well, hopefully they learned a lesson.
As for the whole needing these programs for their future careers. That may be so, but in the US majority of schools k-12 are all on chrome books, and never see a microsoft office product until either in college, or at the job they were hired for....it just shows that it doesnt matter, people will adapt and use what you tell them to.
shd0w2@reddit
lol rookie move
Alarming-Road-9967@reddit
Skipping DPIA upfront basically guaranteed this mess.
Nandulal@reddit
it's always somebody else's problem haha
elatllat@reddit
There have been good alternatives to paying to be a Microsoft victim for 16 years.
stromm@reddit
Who got fired?
Complex_Win_5408@reddit
LMAO these commenters clearly don't deal with MS daily.
Secret_Account07@reddit
Meh yes and no
Our org spends many millions, probably over 60 mill a year, in MS licensing. We have a dedicated TAM but I imagine smaller orgs may not. Anyways, they would 100% fix this for us. Not to mention this is horrible PR for MS, I can’t imagine any TAM with even a little power couldn’t get it fixed.
But idk, maybe MS really did know and said no.
Complex_Win_5408@reddit
Exactly
Complex_Win_5408@reddit
Bots on all of the responses.
mods_are_lame1@reddit
They should have just called Microsoft back and got a different answer.
elatllat@reddit
What's the non-AI phone number?
The_Wkwied@reddit
next week, 'they decided they are not using microsoft anymore'
texcleveland@reddit
Ah Germany still suffering from Stasi-induced PTSD
uncertain_expert@reddit
The whole process of needing to carry out a DPIA and the ln sign the correct DPA before they can “…then repurchase the licenses on the correct legal basis” speaks to me more of Germanic tendencies towards rule-following than of this being a Microsoft licensing problem.
ProfessionalBread176@reddit
Another reason to shop elsewhere
And of course, the myriad of choices when complying with regulations is over the top too
Sweet-Sale-7303@reddit
This sounds like a backend issue not a licensing issue. It says the wrong data protection agreement. Seems like they just need to sign the right one. I don't think they have to repurchase everything.
snebsnek@reddit
Oopsie poopsie.
fedesoundsystem@reddit
Can you approve another 300,000? Promise that won't happen again
colin8651@reddit
“IT DOESN’T INCLUDE TEAMS!!!???”
“Okay, I promise, this is the last time”
Arudinne@reddit
This is by design, because of the EU.
loosebolts@reddit
I’ll admit to glazing over wherever Microsoft licensing comes up, but I didn’t think there were different types of education license? Just A1/A3/A5? Unless they’re talking EES but I thought that was just one single license type?