Determine from general campus computing center if certain site licenses exist for titles already or if budgets from central administration can support site license purchase. Buy the number of copies that you feel will be used simultaneously. Install copies of everything on all machines, but link machines to Server that monitors the launching of each software titles. This use of network can save money in the long run. Management Managing software in a lab can be a daunting task, especially if the lab is a combination of both a Mac and Windows environment.
Solutions exist for both platforms but nothing is ideal.
Free for all. One solution is to have no management system and trust that the hard drives will be stable from user to user. This model requires that personnel monitor the stations and respond to complaints from users about problems. Fixes can be as simple as adding a new copy of a piece of software or rearranging a desktop. This solution can create a rather artificial user interface and can actually prevent some software from running.