Hi, I'm Dave Doohen, founder of Reveal SAM.
Twenty years inside Microsoft licensing. Now running an independent practice.
My path into Microsoft licensing started somewhere most licensing consultants didn't begin. From 1996 to 2000 I served in the US Army as a Signal Systems Support Specialist (31U) with the 1st Platoon, 1/7th Field Artillery — the Big Red One — based in Schweinfurt, Germany. I provisioned, maintained, and repaired the communications, radio, phone, and computer-network equipment that kept my unit's tactical operations center running. That was my first hands-on exposure to Microsoft technology.
After the Army came five years in telecom. First as a 911 Implementor for USWest/Qwest, designing and testing the communications circuits that carried 911 traffic across Minneapolis and its suburbs. Then at AT&T as a Communications Technician working office and datacenter telco equipment for AT&T and its clients across the Midwest. While at AT&T, I finished my Bachelor of Science in Information Technology from Saint Mary's University. Two layoffs later, in 2005, I pivoted into software.
In 2005 I joined a Microsoft SAM vendor as a sales rep — selling and eventually managing the sale of SAM engagements (audits, license assessments) to Microsoft's enterprise customers. Seven years inside that model is where I became a Microsoft licensing subject-matter expert: the contracts, the gotchas, the audit playbook, the leverage points. It's also where I learned what I didn't want to do.
The vendor model is built on aggressively pursuing customers. Microsoft sets the targets. The vendors execute. The longer I worked it from the inside, the more it felt less like advocacy and more like prosecution — with the client always on the receiving end. I started thinking of Microsoft as the Empire. I wanted to be on the side helping clients defend their position — not the side building the case against them.
In 2012 I made the move I'd been thinking about — from sales into the technical analyst role. I joined a software reseller (EnPointe, which became Insight Technologies through later M&A) as a SAM analyst, actually running the reconciliation work I'd previously been selling. At the same time, I started independent consulting alongside four former Microsoft licensing executives who each ran their own advisory practices. I ran their SAM engagements. The four eventually formed a consulting group and joined Directions On Microsoft, and I came along.
For about thirteen years I worked that dual track — reseller analyst by day, independent consultant on the side. In May 2025, the reseller laid off our analyst team. I joined Directions On Microsoft full-time as their Senior SAM Analyst, and I started Reveal SAM LLC to continue the independent consulting work I'd been doing all along — under my own name this time, for clients who want a Microsoft licensing advisor whose only paycheck is theirs.
Track record and credentials
Two decades of Microsoft licensing work, across industries and engagement types.
Bachelor of Science in Information Technology
Saint Mary's University
Microsoft SAM Certified Professional
Husband and father.
How I think about the work
Four working principles that shape how every engagement runs.
You decide.
License decisions are yours to make. My job is to give you the analysis, the options, and the implications — not to tell you what you have to do. I bring the licensing expertise; you bring the business context. We work the answer out together.
Transparency over opacity.
Microsoft licensing has too many corners where vendors hide their incentives. I don't have any. No partner rebates, no sales kickbacks, no preferred-vendor steering. The way I work, you see what I see — including when the answer isn't what either of us hoped for.
Defend what you have, fix what is broken.
Most clients aren't actually non-compliant — they just don't know how to articulate the compliance they have. Auditors overstate findings. Vendors push licenses you don't need. My job has two halves: defend the position you actually have, and quietly close the gaps that are real. Both matter. Neither alone is enough.
Scope to fit, not to maximize.
A one-hour advisory call is priced like a one-hour advisory call. A six-week audit defense is priced like a six-week audit defense. I don't push clients into engagements they don't need to maximize my hours — and I'd rather lose the deal than win it on the wrong scope. The clients I keep are the ones I sized correctly the first time.
Where to start.
Schedule a 30-minute call. Tell us where you're starting — heading into an audit, planning a renewal, or just trying to understand your license position. We'll tell you what we'd do, and whether we're the right fit for the work.