BYU-Idaho eliminates $265,000 of licensing costs

As more CES-level technology coordination takes place, it creates opportunities to reduce single-campus software contracts.

Case in point: BYU-Idaho recently subtracted $265,000 of annual costs with Microsoft.

Previously, BYU Idaho’s contract provided students with both virtual desktop infrastructure and the suite of Microsoft 365 software.

That second part of the contract became redundant when a CES-level agreement with Microsoft also granted the 365 software to all students.

BYU-Idaho’s Doug Thompson recognized this opportunity to not only remove a redundancy but to rightsize the number of virtual desktop licenses due to BYU-Idaho’s unique track system. When BYU-Idaho students go off-track for a semester, any licenses they had been using could be reassigned to incoming students. Through an analysis of Duo authentications, Doug and BYU-Idaho’s identity team validated the projection that they will only need 1,000 virtual desktop licenses per semester going forward.

These two actions – eliminating the redundancy for 365 and optimizing the virtual desktop licenses – mean BYU-Idaho’s cost will drop from $280,000 annually to a projected $15,000 depending on campus growth.