An industry survey we co-sponsored last year showed that BI vendor pricing/licensing has historically been one of the biggest obstacles to the deployment of Pervasive BI. All those seats start adding up pretty quickly.

Pricing/licensing issues can be challenging not only for customers but also for the software vendor. Personally, I don't see tracking user counts, numerous licensing discussions/transactions/invoices/payments/license keys, etc. as a particularly productive use of anybody's time. We have recently introduced a new pricing/licensing model which is intended to simplify the whole licensing discussion by offering 1) no charge for unlimited end users, 2) a very affordable way for people to buy a small number (even just one) of "Report Designer" licenses to get started, in production, still with unlimited end users, 3) a very reasonable license cost for both unlimited Report Designers and unlimited End Users.

Judging by the response so far, I'd say 1) the survey results were correct and 2) people like simplicity in licensing. Nobody likes having to track users, who is using licenses and who isn't, are there enough licenses, of what types, etc. etc. And of course nobody likes having to pay for licenses for people who may not even wind up using them, or using them very much. Pricing/licensing models are just one part of any overall solution, but they are an important part.