[Macpartners] Mac OS X License Availability

[Deb Bowser]

MIT's Information Services and Technology (IS&T) is pleased to announce the 
availability of an additional 500 Mac OS X (10.3) licenses for Faculty and 
Staff.  These licenses are in addition to our previous allocation of 1000 
licenses bringing our total to 1500 Mac OS X licenses.  We also extended 
our Apple Mac OS X license through June 2005.  Separately, we arranged for 
a one-time student allocation of Mac OS X (10.3) licenses.

We wish to request further assistance from the Community in the allocation 
of these 500 licenses.  Your assistance is needed in two areas.

       --  DLCs who have previously requested Mac OS X licenses, please 
validate your request to ensure all licenses are in use.  Any unused 
licenses should be returned, so, we may re-issue them.

       --  DLCs should consider the computer's specifications and 
viability.  Licenses should not be requested for equipment slated for 
retirement within the year.  Support providers for faculty or 
administrative staff should not request licenses for machines which are no 
longer supported as of June 30, 2003.  See 
http://web.mit.edu/swrt/announcements/de-support-fy03.html.

As previously decided with the community, IS&T is discontinuing support for 
Mac OS 9.x as of June 30.  It is our approach to assist with upgrades from 
aging operating systems on equipment with sufficient 
specifications.  Keeping pace with current OS and applications benefits 
everyone.  In preparation for this milestone, IS&T is providing licenses 
for Mac OS X 10.3 to support departments, labs and centers to make this 
transition. Mac OS X 10.3 will be the recommended operating system for 
Macintosh users as of July 1.  For users running Mac OS 10.2.x, IS&T will 
continue to provide support.  If this meets your needs, there is no 
compelling reason to upgrade between now and June 30th, 2004.

IS&T has obtained licenses for MIT students that own current Macintosh 
computers and expect to use them for at least a year. It is important to 
note that student licenses are not covered by our agreement, therefore, 
will not be eligible for upgrades.  More information is available at 
http://web.mit.edu/is/products/vsls/mitmacos/.

Licenses for Mac OS X 10.3 can be requested from the Volume License 
Software Distribution team at 
http://web.mit.edu/is/products/vsls/mitmacos/. Once we have depleted the 
additional 500 license allocation, colleagues may purchase licenses from 
GovConnection: http://web.mit.edu/ecat/govconnection/; (part number 468862).

Please keep in mind that there may be a delay in fulfilling orders 
initially do to heavy volume.

IS&T recommends that departments, labs and centers budget accordingly if 
they wish to upgrade to future versions of Mac OS X once the maintenance on 
the current licenses has expired.  IS&T will continue to work with Apple to 
ensure that future versions of Mac OS X are available to MIT at reasonable 
prices and will consider providing licenses in the future if there is a 
compelling reason for the Institute to upgrade.

Deb Bowser
MIT IS&T
Software Release Team