XP Embedded Licenseing

[Billy Bob]

Hello

I'm rather new to Xp Embedded and I'm sure my question has been asked a
thousand times over, but I can't find any concrete information on this
topic - XP Embedded licensing.

The company I work for creates, uses and sells customer test equipment and
the O.S. we are looking to use is XP Embedded, which is fine, but here is my
question(s). The test equipment that we make has a computer running XP
Embedded and we will be selling our product to our outside the company
customer. Now we don't actually sell the O.S. it is just aline item on the
B.O.M.

What's the MS Embedded official stance on this? I'm worried that our
company could be in jeopardy of violating some licenses agreement and I if
the question is ever asked, I'd like to provide some written document that
states we can or can not do this.

Thanks
Bill

 

[Andy Allred [MS]]

Hi Bill, I'm not sure i understand what your question is since the scenario
you describe appears that you're manufacturing an embedded device with our
OS and selling that device, which is normal. But the best bet for you to get
licensing questions answered properly is to ask your Windows Embedded
Distributor that you're purchasing the runtime licenses from and the Tools
from. The distributors are trained by Microsoft in all things related to
licensing wrt embedded devices running an OS from Microsoft.

If you ever have problems communicating with your distributor please let us
know, you can contact the team through our e-mail link on the side of our
blog listed below.

--
Andy

Check out the Embedded team blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/embedded/

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Billy Bob]

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, that is what we'll be doing. The equipment that we design will be sold
to a end customer. While we're not "selling" them the OS, it is included as
a line item on the BOM. We have the OS image on a boot DVD using SDI
manager and another CD with our application install.

I assume that what we are doing, would be ok, but legally my assumptions
won't work. I'd need some type of verbiage that says this is normal.

 

[Martin Grossen, eMVP [AVNET Silica]]

Billy

Following standpoint from authorized distributor side:

For every XP-Embedded image on your HW platform, you need
a runtime license. This is "only" a COA (license sticker) you have to buy
from
a embedded authorized distributor.
You can find all of the here:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/embedded/disti/distributors.mspx

Before buying such licenses, you have to sign an Embedded OEM agreement
to microsoft. (aka CLA). Don't worry, no quantities are defined in the
agreement...)


The price for a XP-Embedded license vary between 80 USD and 100 USD,
regarding
the quantity you will buy.

--

Martin Grossen, eMVP

AVNET EMG Silica
Franchise Manager Microsoft Embedded Europe

Your competent partner for Microsoft Embedded licencing

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