Editorial Standards & Content Policy
Everything we publish on microsoftnegotiations.com — guides, white papers, blog analysis, research reports — exists to help enterprise buyers make better Microsoft commercial decisions. Because that audience makes high-value decisions on the basis of what we write, we hold our content to the same review discipline we apply to the buyer-side documents we file in live Microsoft negotiations. This page explains how our content is researched, written, reviewed, sourced, dated, and corrected.
Why content is authored at the firm level, not under personal bylines. We deliberately do not publish individual named author bylines. In adversarial Microsoft negotiation, naming the buyer-side practitioners who advise our clients creates a personal attack surface for Microsoft's account teams and a relationship-management vector we will not concede. Accountability for every page therefore sits with the firm and its named managing partner, under the two-partner review rule described below — not with an anonymous freelancer. You meet the named practice partner who would lead your engagement on the scoping call.
1. Who creates our content
Content is produced by our practice — senior practitioners with operational Microsoft licensing experience drawn from three pools: Licensing Solution Provider (LSP) commercial veterans, former Microsoft Software Asset Management specialists, and former Fortune 500 enterprise procurement operators who have personally signed and managed large Enterprise Agreements on the buyer side. Our research function maintains the proprietary pricing benchmark and survey data that underpins our analysis. Practitioner background and practice structure are described on our team page.
2. The two-partner review rule
No substantive Microsoft commercial claim is published under the firm's name without a second senior partner's review. This is the same governance we apply to buyer-side counter-proposals, level-pricing defense briefs, and audit-response letters: one practitioner drafts, a second reviews for accuracy, and the managing partner is accountable for what goes out. It is the structural reason analysis quality stays consistent across the practice rather than depending on any single author.
3. Sourcing standard
- Primary sources first. Microsoft licensing claims are grounded wherever possible in primary documents: the Microsoft Product Terms, the Microsoft Customer Agreement, Enterprise Agreement and Enrollment documents, official Microsoft pricing and licensing pages, and Microsoft's own announcements.
- Our own data. Benchmark figures, negotiated-outcome ranges, and survey findings come from our engagement book and research function. Where a number is drawn from our proprietary data rather than a public source, we say so.
- Dated specificity. Microsoft commercial terms change frequently. We tie time-sensitive claims to the commercial cycle or effective date they apply to, so readers can judge whether guidance is still current.
4. Independence and conflicts
Our analysis is buyer-side only. The firm holds no Microsoft Partner Network status, earns no Microsoft commission, and takes no LSP referral fee or channel rebate. No commercial relationship with Microsoft or any reseller influences what we publish or the positions we recommend. This is described in full in our Disclosures and on our independence page.
5. Use of AI tools
Where AI-assisted tools support research, drafting, or editing, every published page is still reviewed, fact-checked against primary sources, and approved by a senior practitioner under the two-partner rule before publication. We do not publish unreviewed machine-generated content, and accountability for accuracy rests with the firm regardless of the tools used to produce a draft.
6. Dates and updates
Articles and guides carry a published date and, where the content has been revised, a "last updated" date. We review evergreen Microsoft licensing guides against the current commercial cycle and update them when Microsoft changes the underlying terms. Structured data on each article records its publication and modification dates.
7. Accuracy and corrections
We aim to be accurate and conservative — we would rather understate a negotiated outcome than overstate one. If we get something wrong, we fix it transparently. Our process for reporting and handling errors is set out in our Corrections Policy.
8. Editorial independence from commercial goals
Our guides are not advertorials. We publish analysis that is sometimes unfavourable to products our prospective clients are considering, and we decline to soften factual conclusions to suit a commercial narrative. The content exists to be the most useful Microsoft licensing resource for buyers; the engagement business follows from that, not the other way around.
9. Contact the editorial desk
Questions about our content standards, sourcing, or a specific claim can be raised through our contact form. Correction requests are handled under the Corrections Policy.