To a starving man, even crumbs are welcome
"The R2 release is a paid-for upgrade, but uses the same CALs (Client Access Licenses) as Server 2012, mitigating the cost of transition."
It astounds me that somebody could write a sentence like that as if it is somehow OK, or even worse, a good thing.
The fact that the CAL's will still work after the upgrade implies that in other cases not only do you have to pay to upgrade the server you also have to "upgrade" such ephemeral things as your CAL's which don't actually exist anywhere outside of the febrile minds of MS marketing suits .
The truth is that the convoluted ways that Microsoft licence their crap is even more costly than the actual costs of the licences themselves, yet people just accept this fact as if there is no other possible way to do business.
The hilarious idea that there are companies out there whose primary business is to help hapless IT monkeys navigate the twisting maze that is MS licence compliance is always a source of mirth to me.
What? You want me to pay you money to figure out how much money I need to pay someone else?
Nice try buddy.
Of course MS are not the only offenders in this regard. Oracle and VMWare, are both just as guilty.