"Resellers are saying there has never been a better time to negotiate with Microsoft," says Paul DeGroot, an analyst with independent analyst firm Directions on Microsoft. "It is a buyer's market, and it is a time when customers have had unusual bargaining power with Microsoft."

DeGroot also says that the upcoming ship dates announced by Microsoft for both Windows 7 and Office 2010 make it a tactical time to explore different volume licensing options that could help reduce costs over time.

DeGroot is the author of a report released Tuesday entitled, "Microsoft Volume Licensing Programs." The report helps users understand what volume licenses they need to buy to save money on software, reduce software management costs, and enforce corporate standards.

The report comes at a time when DeGroot says Microsoft is vulnerable as its customers grapple with budget cuts and the industry trends toward online services.

The extent of that vulnerability may be partially revealed Thursday when Microsoft reports its earnings and is expected to have the first ever year-over-year drop in quarterly revenue. The earnings report also will contain information on the pace of renewals for Microsoft's all-important Enterprise Agreement (EA) volume licensing contracts.

DeGroot says economic factors could force customers to put off renewing EA, which run for three years and give users licenses for software, most notably Microsoft's two biggest cash cows: Windows and Office.

"Microsoft is vulnerable here," DeGroot says. "EA gives the user a perpetual license and so that means if you don't renew EA nothing happens. You keep using Windows, you keep using Office. Many customers are going to look at that and say 'if I need to chop money out of my software budget, this is the place I can do it and I can have virtually no impact on my operation.'"

It is not uncommon for companies to spend millions of dollars on EA contracts.

While letting EA lapse may sound like a no-brainer, DeGroot is quick to qualify his statement as a sign of the economic times. "I don't want to say not renewing your EA is the smartest thing you can do, but right now people are having to make some hard choices," he says.

DeGroot says users with existing EA agreements may find that those agreements do not align with the number of PCs they have now after downsizing and layoffs. Companies that contracted for say, 10,000 seats and have reduced staff by 30% are paying for licenses on 3,000 seats they are not using.