It’s that time of year again: tax time.  As we all pay buku to our local CPAs to fill out forms we’re either too incompetent or too uninterested to fill out ourselves, we cringe at the idea of a federal tax audit and dread dealing with IRS agents on the phone: people who won’t give you their first names and only want to be called Mister This or Mizz That.

At the same time, at least in 2009, Microsoft is introducingperpetrating the most ambitious domestic licensing compliance audit in its history, calling any company it suspects may be out of compliance and requiring them to demonstrate that they “own” all the Microsoft software they’re using.  Microsoft’s SAM group is using tersely-worded phone conversations and heavy-handed verbal and written threats about escalation, audits, and legal action in order to ensure compliance. Call it revenue preservation if you want.

I call it lawsuit bait and a huge waste of my clients’ time.  Yet, Microsoft isn’t going to wait until economic conditions have improved to do this. They’re hurting too, and the easiest way to shore up revenue is the horse technique: go back to the same trough and drink some more.  Call existing customers and make sure they’re loaded with all the licenses they could conceivably need.

This technique is a bit of a gamble, as those being audited are mostly volume licensing customers–precisely the type of customers who have been laying employees off the last year or so.  Indeed, these customers’ licensing requirements have in fact gone DOWN, meaning that, for many companies, the amount of Microsoft software that’s actually needed might be less than what the customer has paid for.  Of course, when I asked my SAM agent if Microsoft would compensate me for my time if we were found to be over-licensed, he promptly responded with a proverbial ‘hell naw.’

I then informed him that if he is going to make arbitrary decisions about how my clients’ consulting time is spend (it does take me time to fill out MS’s compliance paperwork properly), he needs to give me or the client more notice.  I can picture lean I.T. staffs whose projects have to be put on hold all because pouty Microsoft is throwing a licensing tantrum. So much for the server upgrade because Ballmer and the gang decided to foist this lofty audit on our I.T. guys. It’s more than a little absurd.

Microsoft, you’re going to piss off a LOT of customers with this behavior.  (Something tells me your biggest customers like NASA and General Motors aren’t getting harassed on the phone by a war-dialing twenty-something with an autographed copy of Introduction to Microsoft Licensing on his book shelf.)

Bottom line, is if you’re going to show up out of the clear blue, and require something of my time, ie. boss me around, you better be either the IRS or my Mom.  Those are the two people for whom I jump through hoops.