How to transfer ownership of an Open License Agreement - Microsoft Open License Basics

Since I am putting this post up as a follow on to my “Be sure the customer’s name is on the agreement” post yesterday, I kept debating if I should title it as is or title it, “Oh *#$&%^&*! I did that, now what?!” Since there are various reasons why one company would choose to transfer an Open License agreement to another company, I thought I would go with it as is, so here you go.

A question I receive from time to time is, “How can a company transfer ownership of an Open License Agreement to another company?” A perfect example was when a Partner contacted me and told me that one of their clients was splitting the company in two and selling off one half of the company to another firm. In that sale, they wanted to transfer ownership of the IT assets of that part of the business too, including some of the Microsoft licenses they had acquired over the years. To do this, you need to follow the steps below:

• Download and complete the “Perpetual License Transfer Form” which can be found HERE (By the way, this is the same form you would use to transfer any Volume License Agreement)

Note that the link above takes you to the Document Search page which can direct you to many different documents you may need from time to time. On the right-side of the page, you will see a link (see image to right) directly to the License Transfer Forms. (Click the image for full-size view) Be sure to choose the one in your language for your region (i.e. North America, Asia, EMEA, etc.)

• Once the form has been completed by the customer (current owner of license) and transferee (new owner of license), the forms should be returned to the reseller.
• Once the reseller receives the forms, they should contact their Microsoft Authorized Distributor, whom the reseller will send the completed forms to for processing.

Now, whether you are someone who finds yourself needing to transfer an Open License Agreement because of the reasons I stated in my “Be sure the customer’s name is on the agreement” post yesterday or for any other reason, you now know how to do this.

If you found this post helpful, you may want to view other posts in my Microsoft Open License Basics series.

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Thank you and have a wonderful day,

Eric Ligman – Follow me on TWITTER and RSS
Global Partner Experience Lead
Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

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Comments

• Anonymous
  June 04, 2010
  Eric - License Transfer Form states to send compelted originals to Microsoft Licensing, GP.  Your post states send to disty.  Can you confirm for me who I send the completed form too? thank you Dan Schlicht

• Anonymous
  June 04, 2010
  @ Dan - For Open Licenses, the form goes to the Disti as stated in my post.  In the next revision of the form, the separate callout for Open to Disti vs. other licenses to Microsoft for processing will be updated.