ONLamp.com: Calculating the True Price of Software

ONLamp.com: Calculating the True Price of Software:

"The conventional wisdom is that you buy a software license (the value of the actual software bits), and then you buy maintenance and support separately, which usually costs 20 percent of the original license cost annually. For a $1,000 software license, you'll pay $200 per year for maintenance and support.

What happens if we decide to separate the 'stock' from the 'dividend'? Could we price the 'software without the maintenance' separately from the 'maintenance without the software'? It's much the same as with that AT&T stock--even if logically the dividend always comes with the stock, a middleman might be able to sell them separately."