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Microsoft Turning Screws on Customers
Mitch Wagner submitted his own story about Microsoft cracking down on big customers who it thinks aren't playing fair on their licenses. "These days, the only thing that Microsoft is interested in discussing with its customers is licensing issues," said John Luludis, CIO of Danzas AEI, an international shipping company with about 10,000 Windows desktops. "We spend a lot of time and resources constantly proving license compliance, while we try to plan an optimum configuration to deal with the rising cost of ownership related to Microsoft's products.""
Why should this be a surprise?
If the companies in question signed an agreement with Microsoft, surely they can't complain when the other party actually wants what is due to them.
It's high time everyone learned what making deals with the devil actually means. Eventually he will collect, in blood...
Will the real Bruce Perens Please Stand Up
Sounds like Microsoft has a long term plan to help linux out....Screw its biggest customers and make them look for alternatives.
I guess the outlook for alternative OSs and office suites is VERY good.
We spend a lot of time and resources constantly proving license compliance, while we try to plan an optimum configuration to deal with the rising cost of ownership related to Microsoft's products.
Linux? BSD?
With companies like Burlington Coat Factory and large parts of the Mexican government leading the way, perhaps we'll see corporations deploy Linux to the desktop as a way to minimize TCO and eliminate licensing issues and the consequent legal costs.
--
Give a man a fish and he eats for a day.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Hey, This is all the OSS movement needs. Now the enterprise will get sick and tired of paying Microsoft for nothing.
For them to dig their own grave with. Looks like M$ is intent on making things as difficult as possible for companies which use M$ products. With enemies like that, LINUX doesn't need friends =).
Anyone who has read the news about Virginia Beach Gov't should not find this surprising at all. A company wants to ensure it's licenses are being upheld.
Now, I could get into the idea that MS waited until there was ample evidence that some governments were dependant on it's products before starting this, but that would sound like a Linux zelot.
Still begs the issue, why now? Why did they not start on day one and come down on pirates? Why have there been posts on MS bulletin boards saying that they don't care if you take the OS you use at work home with you to use. Unless they knew this day would come and only now the boom is lowering.
Does this really surprise anyone? Ensure everyone is dependant on it, saturate the market, then suddenly decide to play hardball with licenses. Gee, sounds like a decent business practice, but only works if you're a monopoly.
DanH
Cav Pilot's Reference Page
Cav Pilot's Reference Page
UNIX - Not just for Vestal Virgins anymore
Why do these people comply with Micro$oft's requests for license audits? Is there actually a lay that forces them to do so? It seems to me that if a company owns the hardware, and knows that they at least got an OEM license for Windows with the machine, they should be able to tell Micro$oft to take their audit request and shove it.
So does anyone know what happens if a company refuses to audit?
Microsoft Corporation are actually murderers.
New York, N.Y. March 30th,2001
In an independent study conducted this month by staff at AntiOffline.com, and MacroShaft.org, it was revelead that Microsoft is killing people on a daily basis, with the evidence verified by statisticians at New York University's Mike Hunt.
"Based on these estimated projections, it seems the Justice Department needs to begin a prompt investigation into this matter." states Mike.
Judging on data gathered on a one month term this is the output:
Windows users crash an estimated two times a day which requires an estimated 3 minutes to reboot. Result?
(Rough estimates)
100 million Windows users x 120 seconds == 507 years lost. 6 deaths a day are attributed to this product. This alone does not include any estimates from those users who have to reboot upon installing programs. Nor does this include time spent configuring TCP/IP reboots.
With an estimated dollar amount of about 22 million dollars lost weekly (this is a generous amount) due to these reboots, its strange that no company has gone bankrupt.
"If anyone would care to break these figures down into dramatic fashion, their would probably be global catastrophes." states Sil of AntiOffline
The difference between life and death on the workplace is no longer restricted to psychotic Postal workers, but rather a more chilling enemy known as the Blue Screen of Death.
We've yet attempted to solidly document that *actual* numbers out of fears our calculator could not reach the given amount, so we actually have given Microsoft what could be an actual death toll of 20-30 people daily.
Staff at Microsoft declined to return our e-mails repeatedly but we will continue to pursue the numbers as time goes by.
President George W. Bush today also intervened on Microsoft's behalf stating, AntiOffline's numbers are fuzzy math. Sil could not be contacted for comment.
"Windows -- When do you want to reboot today?"
who'd a thought
360 degrees of Karma
...the upcoming product activation feature of XP won't work. If MS can't get such large customer groups to pay for their licenses, do they really expect these enormous blocks of users to call in and activate their XP copies? They haven't got call centers large enough to deal with that kind of volume. "XP Pro, Corporate Edition" will come out, and everyone will take it home and make copies of it.
Normally, my comments are more related to the meat of the article, but after yesterday's (somewhat grudging) consensus that jaime's post about the IE security hole story was beneficial to Windows-using Slashdotters, here's a post by none other than CmdrTaco himself to generate dozens of Windows-bashing posts as well as a few refutes from M$ apologists. Well... at least they're fun threads to read :)
From hell's heart I fstab at /dev/hdc
MS has every right to expect everyone who uses their software to have a license and conform to it (under proper fair use laws). Everyone who uses Linux is supposed to conform to the GPL and just because MS is charging huge amounts of money for their OS and has tighter restrictions doesn't change a thing. If a large company doesn't want to pay MS for all 10 000 copies of Windows 2000, they should use another OS, not break the license.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
The problem i see with this is that doing an software licence audit has a high direct cost (time spent doing it, xeroxing of papers, etc...), and also disrups normal operation of the company.
If a software company wants to, they could audit your licence compliance monthy and put you out of business _EVEN IF YOU DON'T USE A SINGLE PIRATED PROGRAM_. The fact that they are taking a week out of every one of your months will probably kill you.
---
Play Six Pack Man. I
...while we try to plan an optimum configuration to deal with the rising cost of ownership related to Microsoft's products.
I know this has been beaten like a dead horse but, Linux. One copy, one license, 10,000 desktops, it does th office productivity and internetworking that the windows machines do just fine, A good desktop (Gnome, KDE) is intutive enough that retraining would be minimal, not to mention the costs that could be saved. On the flip side, it would take more on the technician end, but I think dropping the cost of 10,000 M$ Windows licenses would more than make up for it.
You say you want a revolution....
Legally licensed and Operated...The Linux Pimp
--It's Pimptastic!--
Some of it is our fault because we trusted the wrong folks internally to keep track (long story and trust me, you don't care to hear it) but there is a lesson to be learned in making sure someone keeps track of these things. Preferably someone involved with computers...
Of course I'm having a very hard time biting my tongue about how we could avoid this problem in the future. (*cough* linux *cough*)
I would be damn happy if people pirated my software, because that would mean that more people are using my product, thus equating increased revenues when they go and buy the real thing.
Our company recently recieved an intersting little letter from MS. The gist of it was "We know licensing is very important to our customers. Please let us know what we can do to help you maintain compliance."
Uh-huh. Talk about a thinly veiled threat. We had just done a software audit a couple weeks beforehand, so we were cool. But still, the damn thing read like some Mafia protection letter.
Dirk
I keep trying to pick fights, but I can't shake this Excellent karma.
I notice no mention of Microsoft going after the government. Might be interesting if the claim the right to audit the NSA or DoD.
And why isn't RAMBUS suing somebody over this?
By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more. - Albert Camus
Use to be, you heard everybody talk about the 'Blind Eye' at Microsoft, i.e.: the attitude that yes, there is going to be some OS piracy, and no we're never going to get rid of it all, but that's okay, because it means that more people are using Microsoft than Mac0S or Linux.
I guess with a company that is as large as the one mentioned, with as many Win32 desktops, Microsoft values extracting as many dollars as they can through extortion tacticts rather than turning the other cheek and increasing their good karma with 'Microsoft Shops'.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
You ought to make that sentence more clear to people like me that have trouble reading things.
I first read it as:
"Turning Microsoft On Screws Customers"
So please CmdrTaco, please don't do the knee jerk response and post EVERYTHING that goes against MS, we already KNOW how full of shit Gate and co are...and anyways, after a certain point it just makes you look like a troll.
Burn Hollywood Burn
Christ, this is the funniest thing I've seen today.
The paralells between this and even your average smoking commercial are hilarious.
"With every reboot, you lose six minutes off your life!"
Will the real Bruce Perens Please Stand Up
I'm not quite understanding how Microsoft can take the position they have with the Alaska Airlines issue. How can they demand a license for a computer logging into the company network via a terminal app? Isn't that akin to my ISP (which runs NT servers) being required to pay for a full-time Windows license for everybody that dials in?
It's so rediculous I know I've got it wrong. Somebody please enlighten me.
BTW, about a year ago i interviewed for the "Anti Piracy" group at MS. They we're very interested in encyption, and my JavaScript skills (which i had none of). Bunch of weird scary looking guys, not the normal breed of geek you find at MS. They didn't seem to bright either (hey they made me an offer). They also wanted a second interview to see what kind of "person" i was.. i think because i would be the only guy there who was under 40 and didn't live with there mother.
but anyway.
-Jon
Streamripper
this is my sig.
(Sigh!)
No, you can't be surprised at that. However, one point raised in the article is (if I may be allowed to paraphrase) is that trying to understand the terms of the MS license for your software is somewhat akin to trying to derive a sommon sense meaning from a Scientology manual.
(Sigh, sigh!)
Just because something is legal, doesn't mean that is moral - or practical - or good business sense - or reasonable!
If we could just get people to turn in their neighbors for non-conplience to Micro$oft licencing then we could have all the content we need for that new George Orwell Novel.
I no longer need to punish, deceive, or compromise myself. Unless, of course, I want to stay employed.
The headline was supposed to be "Microsoft Turning On Screws Customers"
-----
"Defenestration" is to throw out of a window; what's a word for throwing 'Windows' out of something?
That's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't get this crap about not being able to use software over networks. It's a necessity in many environments nowadays. If I have two joysticks for a game I can play it with two people in the room but I can't serve the game to players over a network. Or I can use two joysticks for a game but I can't use use two keyboards for one computer, much less a network. What about using VNC? Anyways good bye cruel PC. I'm going Amiga and I'll stick to making music and demos. This is getting ridiculous.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
If Microsoft accuses a company, and claims the company owns X number of licenses while the company claims it has Y number of licenses. If Microsoft forces them to an audit, and in the end, it is show that the company only owns Y number of copies with the license required, can the company sue Micro$0ft for the lost time/money in auditing, and is there a minimum amount of time Microsoft has to wait before it accuses the company again?
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
Microsoft is using its monopoly power to extort arbitrary 'fines' and 'settlements' from its users.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
If their record keeping tracks the number of (re)installs, every Win'95 machine owner must owe about a million bucks by now.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Does anyone have info on licensing for .NET? Perhaps they are trying to force people over to .NET so they can milk us. This much squeezing will make people consider other options if they are anywhere near to sitting on the fence.
A lot of posts on the forums here always point to "too bad we can't switch to Linux" or "We wouldn't have this problem with Linux". While I agree that Linux, or pretty much any version of Unix, is better than running M$ products, Linux is NOT ALWAYS the answer. In your case, your answer is to keep better records of your Windows licenses. I find it odd that if you're such a big company, that you don't have a site license for your workstations.
Picture putting Linux on one of your sales force's desk. They wouldn't know what to do with it. Linux (or in my case FreeBSD) is the answer for people like US. All of the techies, kernel hackers, coders and network admins that understand how to use Unix. You would spend more money retraining your people, and higher support costs running around answering questions, than you would spending to make your company M$ license compliant.
Get a site license and don't worry about it. You'll sleep better tonight.
Brad
Alot of companies will put with this. Even though there are alternatives. Reason why why? That lack of day to day business apps on the OSS OSes. Lack of uniformity between them and and some people rather live in a known hell than a unknown heaven.
--
Unselfish actions pay back better
Microsoft has been able to keep it's stock price stratospheric for years by posting record earnings. However, with slumping hardware sales, a slowing economy, lethargic adoption of Windows 2000 and Office 2000 and a emergence of a real threat on the low end server from Linux and BSD Microsoft can no longer afford to look the other way when it comes to licensing issues. Microsoft needs the revenues, and it needs them now. After all, employee options are a huge part of the average Microsoftie's employment package. If their stock doesn't go up (or worse, if it goes down), then working at Microsoft is not really that nifty a job.
In the past Microsoft realized that casual sharing of their software actually served as a very effective free advertising campaign. It helped maintain their position by making sure that their software was ubiquitous. Now that they have the market tied up, they are looking to reel in all the freeloaders.
Microsoft's plan will backfire, especially if they continue pestering companies that are honestly trying to comply.
Of course we are all thinking, good now they'll switch to Linux. It sure would be nice if they did, but you have to remember something. Businesses are run by businessmen. The words computer and Windows are interchangeable in their minds. They aren't going to change to linux, because they know NOTHING about computers. NOTHING.
It's sad to say, but this is why Microsoft is so successful. Bill Gates is both a computer guy AND a businessman. He probably knows, but wont admit, that windows is unstable as hell and that the things he does are evil. But he doesn't care, because it gets him more money.
A company isn't going to switch from windows to something like linux because microsoft harrasses them about licenses. It's just a way for microsoft to squeeze money out of its customers who can't or wont use another product. That's why it's called a MONOPOLY.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Exactly, I can't see what the problem is here. Two parties have made an agreement and one party wants to check that the agreement is followed. This is a common situation in any business.
Microsoft is very dependant on steadily growing profits. That's what keeps Wall Street happy, and is necessary for their stock prices to go up (although clearly not sufficient as recent prices prove.) Since they have largely saturated their primary market, they have two options. One is to expand into new markets (ala X-Box) to increase profits. The other is to extract ever-increasing amounts of money from current customers. That's why the screws are being tightened now. In the past, the OS market was growing fast enough that they could let quite a bit of stuff slip and keep the train rolling. Now, they are losing steam profit-wise, and need generate more pressure. This also explains why they want to move to a subscription-based model. Guaranteed revenue. No more of these slackers (like me) running Win98 and Office97, denying M$ it's "rightful" profit from Win2K and Office2K. When they need more money, they will just up the monthly fee, and instant cash. Any suckers still trapped in their clutches is going to really start feeling the pain then.
Microsoft starts auditing to enforce it's licenses and Slashdot runs around expounding on how evil they are and how we must all turn to the light to stop the coming of Satan.
The FSF starts a GPL crackdown and the person that broke the license is the bad guy, not the FSF.
Perhaps you people need to know that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones?
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
Because if they don't microsoft can revoke their right to use licenses without refunding a penny.they don't have to let you use their software if you don't agree to their terms. they can also sue or file a criminal complaint and then the court will require the alleged violator to prove compliance, and you can't tell the court to shove it. it is cheaper just to agree to the audit and pay the penalties for any violations discovered.
.^
^.
( @ )
Soylent Foods, Inc.
Analysts said Microsoft is cracking down on licensees amid lackluster financials.
This, in a nutshell, may be the biggest reasons to choose a non-proprietary OS over one belonging to a company that has "appeasing shareholders" as it's primary goal. This decision has nothing to do with unpaid licenses growing in number; it is a case of M$ taking advantage of a known phenomenon (many companies are likely have a few more desktops and/or servers running NT than they report) to inflate profits during a bad quarter. The behaviour of the company is subject to corporate whims rather than consistantly enforced policy. No wonder so many shops are implementing mid-to-long range plans to phase out NT.
From hell's heart I fstab at /dev/hdc
Ugh...
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/bin/fortune | slashdotsig.sh
If there is a violation of the GPL, it is equivalent to breaking one of the Ten Commandments, but if Microsoft defends their license it's just another example of "evil corporations."
Got Rhinos?
Just when I was starting to think that /. wasn't being biased against Microsoft, and was actually engaging in fair reporting, CmdrTaco comes in and ensures that this is not the case. Thanks again!
:)
Seriously though, why should we be feeling sorry for these people? So they didn't bother to document how many licenses they have and how many desktops they have running which software.... how exactly is that some sort of Microsoft problem?
It would appear that CmdrTaco is attempting to scare people by giving the impression that Microsoft runs around with a club trying to beat people over the head for more money (that may or may not be the case.)
I know that we keep exact records of how many licenses we have for each piece of software, and how many of those licenses are currently in use. Microsoft could walk in tomorrow and we can present the proof that we have x copies installed and we own y licenses, end of story. Any IT/PC support department worth their salt would be doing the same.
Cost is another issue entirely. Sure, the initial price for a Linux system is little to nothing, but when you factor in other issues that corporations face every day, the Linux value isn't quite the deal it once appeared to be.
First of all, there is no MS Access equivalent. That would mean we'd have to switch over all these little programs that have maybe 10 users to another system. There really isn't any RAD programming system for Linux (Klyx ain't there yet.), so that means a lot of time and effort for something pretty small.
There is also the cost of retraining all of our users and staff. We would have to try and track down and support lots of Linux apps for various tasks, if they even exist. If not, we'd have to write and support our own from scratch. I would also say anywhere from 20% to 50% of the peripherals and components in the systems we have out there don't have any Linux support whatsoever, which means replacing a lot of hardware.
The lack of any standard Directory Services client also hurts. The only real options without spending an insane amount of money are NDS and AD, neither of which have Linux clients.
Oh, and any time any person on the company wants a software application, we would have to go scour the net to try and find a Linux-compatible one, or try and write out own.
When you compare all that to the cost of Windows 2000 (less than $10,000 for 7 copies of server and 1000 user CALs under our select contract), and it really doesn't make sense to switch.
-------
-- russ
"You want people to think logically? ACK! Turn in your UID, you traitor!"
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
On the whole this is a good thing for everyone in the world. Supply/demand relationships are well understood, and everyone is aware that price manipulation affects both. Essentially, Consumers (both retail and corportate) have been getting substantially "Discounted" software from Microsoft through either incorrect, or blatantly fraudulent licensing. Now that Microsoft is turning screws, this is affecting the real price, and thus changing the supply / demand process. Alaska Airlines is a classic example of a Demand drop.
Microsoft has probably done it's maths, and figured that the increase in revenue will outweigh the drop in demand. What is of interest to me, and it is my prediction, that like Alaska Airlines, more companies will innovate and find "work-arounds". This process will reduce dependancy on Microsoft, and will fuel a process of "divorce" from Microsoft. The big word for this is that Microsoft is "disenfranchising" it's customers.
The good news for everyone else is better, more interesting jobs outside of Redmond. I am one of those people.
Anyway, my advice to Microsoft customers, "Count your pennies".
.. if only.
"We spend a lot of time and resources constantly proving license compliance"
Maybe a better investment would be, to train the staff to use another operating system, instead of always trying to figure out how to make the best of Microsoft licensing terms, only to have it in pieces again, when Microsoft decides to change their licensing again. At least retraining has to be done only once. Also they may expect that with the event of XP (which means eXPerience as we all now learned) they're in for a totally new (but not better) licensing eXPerience.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
Snapper has found it difficult to get Microsoft to recognize new systems as being part of that license, said Snapper CIO Howard Jones.
:o)
I guess he forgot that magic line "If you throw it all away.. things can only get better."
Seriously though, this is just the first "public" signs that MS is floundering.
Analysts said Microsoft is cracking down on licensees amid lackluster financials. After years of racking up spectacular earnings growth, Microsoft posted flat earnings in its most recent quarter
In the past, MS has been investigated by the SEC for maintaining a slush fund to cover up "bad" quarters.. (they allegedly stashed away cash during good years to pump back into the company during bad times, to 'even out' their chart..) the fact that they are scambling now shows that this slush fund has run dry... which means that they're in much worse shape than first appears..
All in all, I'd say this is cause to celebrate
Look, it doesn't take a genius to figure out how to handle Microsoft licencing. You basically have two options:
1) Buy site licences for all of your Microsoft stuff, even if this means paying for certain copies of Windows twice. At least you know you are legit.
2) Keep track of all your individual licences. Cheaper, but higher administrative overhead.
Now, we have these 'legitimate' companies who have chosen a third option: "Don't buy a site licence and don't keep track of licences and don't do any internal auditing". Which means they get to save all sorts of money and hassle in the short term, but are essentially bending over like the goatse guy to pick up the soap.
Obviously it's poor business practice for MS to go around and harrass people that are legit or trying to be legit. The problem here is organizations where the IT department turns a blind eye to what's going on. Look what happened at Virginia Beach -- They were all smug with their 'standard' of WordPerfect, but they knew full well that everyone out there was running MS Office (sometimes paid for, sometimes not).
So, the moral is that stupid companies get screwed. Today it's Microsoft, tomorrow it will be Corel, the next day Oracle.
Microsoft's licensing scheme would have killed us. We would have to buy a client license for every client machine, a server license for every connection to the server, and a Citrix license on top of all this. We would have paid these, but even without charging for our application and services we would have been unable to compete on price. There must be another way.
[Enter stage left: Linux.]
We were already a Unix shop. Some of our programmers were playing with RedHat 5.x. Then, it hit us: no client license fees for Linux. Would Linux prove robust enough for mission critical applications? Yep.
This is a compelling business reason for choosing Linux (or other OS/FS alternative). Yes, we had technical reasons, too (having the source is terrific), but the business realities sealed the deal.
Microsoft may have changed its technologies to focus on the Internet, but its pricing strategies are stuck in a 1983 standalone time warp.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
http://www.osopinion.com/perl/story/8563.html
"The rug is pulled out from underneath high-paid help desk and sysadmin positions because everything is centralized and run at Microsoft. MBA's rejoice and switch over to the new model in droves."
now theres some creepy stuff.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
Hey man, copies of Win2K just blew across the road and sprouted on my desktop
Does this crackdown support Microsoft's .NET strategy, by offering to "manage the licenses for us?" All you would need is a username and an account number--and Microsoft would helpfully bill your company on the basis of the apps you used and the time that you spent using them. Just think--freeing the IT departments of maintaining the actual apps, and licenses thereof, themselves!
--
$tar -xvf
As the brief points out, all MS is concerned about when speaking to their clients is the license issue. If MS were smart, they'd realize that they turn people off when that's all they concern themselves with.
I use AutoDesk AutoCAD (very glorious program), and I have a licensed copy fully registered. Because of this, they inform me regularly where I can get free downloads for updates to the software. At an option, I can pay a small additional fee, and they will send me a new CD every quarter. But the point is, they keep me pretty well informed. If I need assistance, help is free as well (that's a toll free number). This is why AutoDesk is the market leader with CAD.
If MS keeps up their antics, they might find themselves a has-been. Wordperfect Sweet might catch up and overtake them. Star Office (OpenOffice) might as well. In the OS market, there's plenty of contenders there. Maybe they gotta start doing something they've never had to before -- Business to Client interaction...and nicely at that.
Coplan
Were you ever a marketing director for a failed .com media company? This sounds a bit too much like "mindshare is our biggest asset" for me to be comfortable with.
_____________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
A licensing disagreement with Microsoft forced Alaska Airlines to scrap a plan to give pilots browser access to a mainframe work-scheduling application, said CIO Robert Reeder. The initial plan was to run terminal emulation software on Windows NT, letting pilots access the app from their home PCs and airport kiosks.
;)
When Microsoft heard about the application, it demanded that the airline pay for a full-time license for every computer that would access the app, Reeder said. "I told them that was ridiculous," he said. "I can't license every computer in the world."
This is pretty damn funny, but am I missing something here? Why should the airline be responsible for licensing remote users? Is this "mainframe work-scheduling application" a Microsoft app that has to be licensed (which I can almost understand), or are they saying that any computer simply accessing a remote NT box has to be licensed to do so?
Somehow, I can't help but think of the Star Wars quote, "The more you tighten your grip, the more systems will slip though your fingers". And yes all you quote geeks, I realize that probably isn't exact
I'm for using alternate OSes, even better ones, and do where I can. The problem with the idea of switching over to Linux is the lack of apps. Sure there are office suites, but there are thousands of specialty apps built ONLY for MS OSes, with no comparable 'free' alternative. The big hurdle I see is the lack of a standard, and lack of development tools built on this standard to start replacing these MS only apps. For us geeks, it's loads of fun to have a non-MS OS, but end-users don't care, they need the apps that they've struggled to learn.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
1. Linux users pissed they can't buy boxen without Winx on them.
2. After a lot of heavy lifting, they get their wish and can buy them with nothing preinstalled.
3. Now that a box in itself is no longer proof of having bought Winx, MS can gallop in and get companies to double-pay their licenses.
If this wasn't so sad, I'd be laughing my butt off now.
--- Submission is feudal.
The "advantage" .NET brings to the table is that MS gets paid for every active seat, period. Our little (30 people) company got a nastygram from MS recently, saying we had better oughta be in compliance. The "or else" part wasn't spelled out, but they did forward the name of a compliance specialization company.
I expect MS will make some very public gaffes in this area in the next year or so.
Dog is my co-pilot.
Yep, Our company (automobile related) is currently shitting itself about the number of Office licenses we have (or don't have actually).
What is really bad, is that we send out send out Office Professional to all our users when most if not all our users will never use anything beyond Excel or Word.
Hey Star Office isn't sounding that bad right about now...
The world isn't run by weapons anymore, or energy, or money. It's run by little ones and zeroes, little bits of data.
I'm reddened in the face just thinking about it. I'm all for following the license restrictions imposed by comercial software but these chaps are being forced to spend resources to audit their systems just to appease a commercial software vendor..Since when did Microsoft have the Kings power to dictate such events in a free market? In a competative market this would not happen. Something must be done before we loose all freedoms and are forced back into the middle ages. I beg of you all to write your parliment or Congress.
Peace be with you
The small company I work for was recently audited by Microsoft. In the audit notification email, that I saw just briefly, was the fact that what triggered the audit was the fact - according to MS - that 'a company of you size cannot be run on the amount of license we have on record for you.' This is as best as I remember the quote. Anyway, apparently MS is looking for reasons to audit companies. Apparently what MS did was to look at publicly available data about our company and then looked at what we had licensed with them and decided to force us to buy more product because they need to make a quota for sales. Their problem was that they looked at the entire company for the public data and looked only at one division (half of the company) for the registered product. The point being is that MS decides how much of their product that a company must buy to do business. This clearly is morally wrong of Microsoft, at least in my viewpoint. Yet we are making plans to upgrade to MS 2000 even though we have a drive on to lower TCO. I've proposed a GNU/Linux solution to management before but nothing ever gets approved.
zenray
Caveat Emptor
We will see more responses like Alaskan Airlines. I can see it now, on one side I've got some MS guy saying they want six figures so I can improve my system and on the other hand my head IT guy has been saying lets dump MS for a couple of years. Six figures will hire some pretty decent programmers and we can do it all in house because these free systems come complete enough to do the job.
Aware buyers are going to start looking seriously at alternatives.
What happened here is quite clear:
Microsoft's profits are shrinking. There are few reasons for this: First is the recession in high-tech. Companies have less money so they buy less computers and software. The other is internal for microsoft: Office2k is not a very good product, and existing users have little reason if any to upgrade from older versions of office. Win2k is also being accepted in a slower pace than anticipated, and in the meanwhile the stock holders are unhappy.
And when the stock holders are unhappy, a public company is usually looking for ways to increase short term profits by cost-reduction and by looking at ways to maximize revenues from existing products. And this is just what microsoft is doing.
The problem is: such short term strategies are often not very wise for the long term: Bad relationship with customers is very damaging for the long term - unless you are a monopoly and the customers have no other choice. Clearly - microsoft still sees itself as a monopoly and acts like a monopoly.
Lets hope those tactics would make microsoft's customers realize there is alternative.
I Linux server, capable of serving both yoru windows and mac domains, it has native support for raid, complex networking, built in router capabilities, native language support. ohh yea and the money you save you can put to hardware. how much will you save ? alot. I've worked for software companies, and gotten the MS evil letter saying you are not in complience. THen had to run aroundmaking sure all unlicenced software was removed. Ohh yea, and dont forget the guy who has to have workers on his server machine because he is paying 5G's in liscence fees.
So, what do you think?
... what if there was a way for me to pay for and use my software online -- it wouldn't even be stored on my computer! Then I'd have no worries about licensing!
Gosh, these licenses sure are hard to keep track of!
Oh I know
If only Microsoft had some kind of product for me...
There are a great number of software packages out there to track licenses..... for example, Tally Systems has an inventory solution that will tell how how many copies of each piece of software are installed on your network.
Novell's ZENWorks is supposed to do that, but the inventory functions are pure S***.
Microsoft's SMS will do it as well, among the many things it also does.
If you need Remote Control, Software distribution, Inventory, etc... and you are on a Windows network, go with SMS.
If you just need Inventory, go with Tally Systems.
Hope this helps those out there in the IT world that cannot afford to use Open Source software for everything, and still need to keep track of licenses.
-------
-- russ
"You want people to think logically? ACK! Turn in your UID, you traitor!"
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
I predict we'll start seeing lots of new MCPs with certification in "Microsoft Licensing"
You know, you said that out loud.
Microsoft realizes that if they audited federal agencies they would only reveal how much they were overcharging them.
.^
^.
( @ )
Soylent Foods, Inc.
Why should you always look for a complex
solution to a problem. Most of the time
in life simple solutions are what is needed.
Ask any programmer looking for bugs. Very often
he'd be looking for big bugs when the bug
was a wrong bit or a wrong byte.
Here the problem is very obvious but you
go past it without realizing that it is
the same thing. Just removing your winblows
and installing something good like Linux will
fix all your nightmares about Microsoft bringing
you in the poor house.
I have yet to see any practical advantage of
winblows over Linux.
Actually, it looks like a number of companies are trying to do option #2 (Keep track of all your individual licences), but are given the runaround by the suppliers of their software--including Microsoft--when they try to figure out what exactly the terms are and get conflicting answers from various sales reps.
You're right in a way. It "doesn't take a genius to figure out how to handle Microsoft licencing." It takes a mind reader.
I think lots of people are sticking with WIN 98 and Office 97. They can't justify it to the bean counters. New versions can't be uninstalled off one machine and reinstalled on it's replacement hardware without MS blessing. I have never upgraded and don't plan to because of that very reason. I tinker with the hardware and upgrade bit by bit. Replacing the 2 gig drive with a 45 Gig drive should not prevent the software from installing. (Office 2K breaks if not registered) It's hard to get it registered as it is already registered on another hard drive. This is the big reason not to use it. I don't want to trigger an audit because I upgraded the hardware. We can't afford it.
The truth shall set you free!
Our company is one of the many who received registered mail requesting a list of all our Microsoft software, license information, and a list of any equipment that may be running said software. Our head of purchasing has flipped out and is running around like an idiot and scaring management into thinking we're under attack.
When my girlfriend was in a car accident, the idiot who caused it hired a lawyer. The weasel lawyer sent out official-looking, registered mail stating that he needed her immediate written responses to the contained survey and questions. Her insurance company said to forward it to them and forget about it, as the lawyer had no right to any of that information. A similar tactic was used when my mother was rear-ended at a stoplight.
Simple fact is that we aren't required to give Microsoft diddly. They are not a federal agency, they don't have authority to demand the info, and we aren't going to give it to them.
Simple solution is to quietly make sure, should the occassion arise that we need to give the proper authority proof, we are up-to-date on our licensing. Sending the information places you in a much more dangerous situation, because Microsoft knows you're scared and ready to cooperate with them.
Incidentally, we were contacted very shortly after by a Microsoft employee who congratulated us on our recent growth (no, I don't know how he knew) and asked if we needed any more licenses to keep us legal. Coincidence... I think not.
The GPL, unlike certain other licenses, does not require that all changes be redistributed. You are perfectly free to keep altered source code to yourself, AS LONG AS YOU DON'T DISTRIBUTE THE BINARY. Anyone who's given the binary must also be given availablility to the source code.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
I work for a small city govt in southeast Texas near the Houston area, posting A/C naturally. Microsoft has accused us and about 250 other city govts in Texas of software piracy and demanded not only audits but proof of purchase for all our licenses. We are 100% compliant and even have more licenses than we have installed MS software but it is a real pain to have to drop all our present projects on hold to comply with this b.s. request. We are seriously considering treating this audit request as a request for public records under the Texas Open Records law, which states that we can charge a "fair" fee for time and materials expended in searching for and producing copies of these public records. I certainly hope that my superiors agree to go ahead and do this, it will be poetic justice in a way. On a more upbeat note, I recently heard that the City of Midland TX's city manager has told MS to go fly a kite and is refusing to comply. I think that this targeting of small, weak government organizations by MS is revenge for the US DOJ's lawsuit and breakup order.
M$ is hassling everybody so that they won't mind the hassle of the XP products. If everybody gets their activation code from M$ then they won't have to worry about licensing. This is just a way of softening perceptions about the impact the new XP products will have. It might sound conspiracy theory like but it makes plenty of sense to me.
"What are the three words guaranteed to humiliate men everywhere?
In Republican America phones tap you.
What good is WinWhatevertheheckthey'reusingnow if buying a copy isn't good enough for MS? Now you have to buy it, register it, then proove to them that you are NOT stealing it. Maybe that's why you payed for the liscencse in the first place, so that they wouldn't bother you. Goes to show that if you do things by the book you just get screwed.
"Life's funny sometimes." "And sometimes it isn't." --Cat's Cradle
Does Microsoft inform you in their EULA about these audits?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
"unless Bill G's been moderating again"
/. stays running despite losing money on every post? (They don't make it up in volume.) It's all secretly funded by M$ ("Andover"? Pfft! As if that's a real company.)
/.'ers don't die, they just 'learn' the joy of windows.
Well, now that I understand true subversive tactics from "1984", it's clear to me that CmdrTaco == Bill Gates.
Identify deviants, recruit them, gain their trust, then burn and 're-educate' them. How do you think
Old
(evil grin)
-----
D. Fischer
ShoutingMan.com
Gar
--
Gareth 'bigbro' Eason : "Big Brother Is Watching You!"
I work at a far smaller company (< 500 employees) in the UK, and we've just been notified that the m$ tax boys and girls are paying us a visit.
Can't wait really, as I've got a whole bunch on unused doze licences due to a number of PC purchased to run linux!
I agree, this is a legitimate business practice, but that doesn't make it wise.
First of all, Microsoft's licensing terms and conditions are unbelievably vague, and not just for the operating system licenses, but for the applications and client access licenses as well.
Try developing a custom application using Exchange 2000, Conferencing Server, and SQL Server 2000 to be accessed by internal users, business partners, and transient consultants. Now imagine the project has a dedicated MS salesperson, and a squad of MS consultants who all have completely differing opinions on what requires a license and what does not. Now take it one step further, and imagine that someone at Microsoft thinks you're missing some licenses and demands a license audit. You spend the next two days trying to piece together what you have, what MS thinks you need, and what you really do need. It happened to my previous company, and after a week of arguing with MS were ultimately vindicated, when the know nothing in licensing was proved wrong.
Now I'm not saying that it isn't within MS's right to do so, but you should seriously consider the impact such a position will have on your customers. That situation so infuriated our CTO, that are next big _similar_ project used Domino and Sametime.
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
Microsoft turning up the screws on corporate america will only make corporate america balk at microsoft's products. They would rather spend $100 coming up with an alternative than pay an extra $1 to prove they are in compliance.
This could do what TUX was never able to do, nothing scares a Boss more than an audit, and they will go to great lengths to avoid being in a position where they can be audited.
TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken
TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken
While it would be difficult on 95\98\Me, I feel that unpriviledged accounts for internet access is the way that ALL os's should work How many linux \ unix users here run netscape or mozilla as root? While the security bugs are bad, everyone should take steps towards boxing off the internet from our personal files. Under win95 and other single user OS's untrusted code can do anything such as wipe partition tables, email off those .pwl files, and destroy flash bioses. Linux is better, as unless you run as root, you can only lose your own files. NT should be able to follow a similar setup. I think that in order to limit the damage that could be done, internet apps should either sandbox themselves, or even better be forced into the sandbox by the OS.
If such a policy was followed, then IE would be able to run all those flash bits of code automatically, the os doesnt let the code touch the disks, and fences it in to a small bit of mem, so whatever is done by the code, the system is protected.
Microsoft is screwing themselves right out of business. Here's why:
Picture two little companies, competing against each other, one uses Windows, the other uses Linux. Microsoft has to do everything it can to milk as much cash as possible out of the first one, and cost of production for that company will inevitalbly be higher than for the other company. (Even accounting for the fact that the Linux-using company might need to hire a guru as its IT manager.
Its pure Darwin folks. The smarter comapnies will use the free OS, the dumber ones will stick with Bill & Co, and run themselves right out of business.
During the boom, this wasn't a problem because everyone was raking in the cash, but as soon as the coming Depression get really bad, people will be looking for ways to cut costs, and getting rid of the MS in a company is the best way to do that. Microsoft is doomed, but they are far too arrogant to realize it, and they might not until its too late.
Reality has a liberal bias
The problem is that there is no recourse for when you spent time and money to prove that you didn't do anything wrong. In any other fascet of life in the US, this is illegal. You know, the whole innocent until proven guilty thing? And when you're wrongly sued or wrongly charged, you can sue for the costs. You have to keep in mynd that MOST of the people that get audited didn't do anything wrong. Most companies that know their ass from their elbow play by the rules.
Is it just me, or does it sound to anyone else like microsoft is finally dying? Dying may be a bit harsh. I'm certain that they'll always be around in one form or another. Even Novell is still with us. But there really seems to be serious issues with nearly every one of their products.
Does anyone know anybody who likes the idea of renting their software? It sounds to me like .NET will be the last nail in the coffin for MS. I can see entire companies leaving microsoft in droves over this one. Which is good for me. I'm a consultant who specializes in MS/Unix interoperability and porting from one to the other.
And what about becomming a license nazi? MS has already been caught collecting info from users machines and sending it back to MS. I read a newsgroup post saying that even some of their games were doing this. They're going after corporate customers now, when will they send a bomb to private users? Maybe it's not a coinsidence that this outlook/activex bug won't seem to die.
And has anyone actually looked at OS X? I played with it at compusa the other day. For the first time ever, I'm actually considering buying a macintosh. I'm telling you, it's unix, I was shocked. I opened a tcsh shell and looked around. With the MACH kernel and the aqua interface, it's everything that linux should be.
And they're taking a beating on the server front as we all know, especially with IIS. If I were doing a new web development project, I would certainly hesitate to go the IIS/ASP route. And is anyone really using C#?
All we need now is a champion for Star Office so that it's as polished as Office, yet still free/open-source.
It looks to me like they've dug their own grave, and now it's time for us to dance on it.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
Windows users crash an estimated two times a day which requires an estimated 3 minutes to reboot. Result?
:-P
100 million Windows users x 180 seconds == 570 years lost.
You missed a couple years
My brother, who works as a SysAdmin at a hospital, says they used to pay for 200 licences of Word, covering the number of copies of Word being served by their Citrix servers at any one time. Microsoft recently changed the license agreement (which it can do), and now they have to buy over 1000 licences, to cover each terminal that might run Word. Furthermore, Microsoft has informed the hospital that in a few years the license will change again: they will need a license for every employee that might use Word on a terminal.
(I submitted this InternetWeek story yesterday morning and it was rejected. How come it's accepted a day late?)
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
now that'd be cool....
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Microsoft software is arguably a single point-of-failure. Desktops preferentially all run one version of MS-Windows, mailservers all run another, and fileservers are similarly uniform. Technically, this is very dangerous because an entire category of service could be lost to a bug/virus.
Now MS playing hardball is adding a legal failure mechanism. One or all MS software may become unrunnable due to legal issues. In negotiations with MS, a CEO needs alternatives if he is to have any power at all. ERP should give him some so he doesn't have to "bend over ..."
I should have mentioned that Microsoft obviously favors #1, and will make #2 difficult for you.
It should be a cost/benefit analysis -- if you can't afford the lawyers and the accountants, don't select option #2. Businesses make these decisions all the time, chosing to pay out one large sum of money for low risk in favor of many small sums of money with unknown risk.
One of the worst mistakes is to put the techies in charge of licence compliance (because they usually have a totally lax attitude towards such things, and they are not exactly organizational geniuses).
I lived through a MS audit a few years ago with the kinder, gentler Microsoft. We had our shit in order and had bought certain selective site licences (such as for Office), so it was no problem.
Microsoft is retrieving sales receipts for all products sold in the past 3 years from ALL authorized microsoft sellers...
===sam=== free nessus vulnerability scan = www.vulnerabilities.org
I guess since Microsoft finally realized linux was kicking its ass, they decided annoy current customers in an attempt to gain more support for their dying OS. Someone should give that marketing guy a raise!
"Great Spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds"
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
-Albert Einstein
Screwing Customers Turns Microsoft On.
:)
All Your Microsoft Are Belong to Us?
OTOH, The Infernal Machine and I have a very low MS-brand tolerance, even when I'm running Windows. Heck, I had to put Office on it for work, and the thing didn't want to speak to me for days.
All my Linux stuff is legal.
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
and a squad of MS consultants who all have completely differing opinions on what requires a license and what does not
That's your problem. Microsoft Consulting is a break-even operation that is effectively part of Microsoft's sales organization. Their opinion on any topic is that your project should use as many MS products as possible, and they'll engineer it that way, and then report the results to sales so that MS can collect after you've deployed. Worse, you are paying them for that service. There's consulting shops out there that are up-to-speed on MS tech, but not in their backpocket. Find them and use them.
(A company I know of made the mistake of letting MS Consulting plan out a commercial product. Ended up based on MS Site Server Commerce, MS Office 2000, and MS-SQL. Turns out the Microsoft licence costs were something like 3 times the company's licence costs, making the product totally non-competitive.)
More typical service organizations (such as that of Lotus/IBM) also want to get their product deployed, but because they are a profit center they at least have some independant 'what's best for the customer' thinking going on.
There really isn't any RAD programming system for Linux (Klyx ain't there yet.), so that means a lot of time and effort for something pretty small.
Au Contrairy!!! Check out RadBuilder 3.0 from Emediat Solutions Inc.. I really like this RAD platform and have written a couple of client applications. Excellent string manipulations, a complete widget set (with the ability to extend), an integrated IDE, cross-platform with Windows, and, most importantly, comprehensive HTML documentation. Sorry if I sound like too much of a booster, but its sad to see good products fall by the wayside due to a lack of exposure.
On the down side, I've heard that they are going to go Open Source but they are not currently... though it is pretty inexpensive (~ $100 for linux I think)
They have a support site at www.radbuilder.org
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
The truth of the matter is that tracking software licenses is not easy for the average IT guy. You buy computers at different times with different versions of Windows. Then you upgrade. Then you get some more computers with the OS installed by Dell. It becomes a big mess quick! There needs to be an easier way to track this stuff. A file cabinet full of little holograms just doesn't cut it. The other side is that I work at a software company and we have invested millions in developing our product. Microsoft has probably spent billions. I think they have the right to protect their investment. They shouldn't, however, make you dedicate a staff of people to organizing holograms or stupid pieces of paper. Maybe someone should create a service that keeps track of what you by and stores the documentation for you. Then you can just call 'em up, order more software and they take care of it. If Microsoft comes calling, just send them to your friendly 3rd party software license provider. You think Microsoft is bad. Take a look at Oracle's licensing agreement and try to figure out how many oracle universal power units you are using: http://oraclestore.oracle.com/cec/cstage?eccookie= Kn658segnj%2BS0p8lPG%2FqAz%2BOMp%2Bi7W2gHmhE1sFSzD DjHZQormq739gPHUBMjeXyFmI3BHUZEIQ%3D&ecaction=ecpa ssthru&template=help.en.htm&p_key_value=help_licen sing
I guess if any of you guys actually had millions of copies of your software out there you might be concerned about getting paid too.
bonehed
Could it be that Microsoft is trying to annoy people and companies to the point where they demand that software can only run, if it licensed? Microsofts current plan is to one day require online-authentication every time a PC boots. That would annoy the heck out of people, unless the people see it as "better" to the alternative auditing system...
Microsoft I think believes, "If we want to do something annoying and to take away the privacy of people, do something legal that is worse so that our "new alternative" looks better and is accepted.".
--Brandon
With proper document management and a little foresight, this wouldn't be an issue. Keep triplicate copies of everything, keep licenses, contracts, and SLA agreements on file, yadda yadda.
Could Microsoft audit IBM? Sure! Would it bankrupt them? I doubt it highly, knowing how the shop is run there.
Microsoft is now resorting to harassing customers with lawyers to extract profit growths. This is good. It means they're putting themselves increasingly into a very unpopular position with large corporations and governments, which may prompt some of the "victims" to lobby (throw money at) lawmakers.
It's bad for customers, but that's par for the course. Microsoft has never been good for the consumer, I don't expect them to change now.
Remember that what's inside of you doesn't matter because nobody can see it.
If my company purchases 500 Compaqs -- complete with mandatory MS OS -- then if Microsoft is worried it's not getting its money, it should be auditing Compaq, not me. Put another way, if Microsoft didn't get its greenbacks, it's Compaq's error; why should I have to pay?
A couple of years back I worked for a consulting firm at a large (5000+ seat) customer site, where we were responsible for installation and upgrade of PCs corporation wide. All PCs were on a three-year depreciation rollover, which means the corporation was buying nearly 1700 replacement PCs every year. Every machine came complete with an MS license, at about 50 bucks a pop.
The kicker is that fully one third of the corporation ran OS/2 -- which means the corporation was paying for nearly 600 MS licenses a year it didn't use.
I think we should have demanded to audit Microsoft.
And then two years ago MS had the gall to accuse us of license violations. And worse, they wanted license accounting not just for the more than 5000 current machines, but for all the machines the corp. had purchased over the last seven years -- all the way back to Win3x days -- including machines which had long ago become landfill fodder. Surprisingly, we were actually able to document 70% compliance; not surprisingly, MS then demanded payment for the other 30% (at then-current prices, of course).
Also not surprisingly, we were neither allowed refunds on those 600 unused licenses per year, nor were we allowed to apply them to the deficit.
The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.
Tune in next time to find out if Batman really is in love with CmdrTaco...
Mod me Mad
I thought there was an M$ license with every computer sold? I can' buy a computer without it....
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Richard von Weizs
The box itself was never proof of a license, because Microsoft could always claim (correctly) that the box may have originally shipped with a different version of the OS than is currently installed on it.
M$ use the "Guilty till Proven Innocent" method on many businesses.
What other business makes you prove that you own your equipment? Does SUN stop by and ask you to prove that each SUN Box has a licensed copy of solaris? No they give the OS away, they sell the support.
TIME is money, and if M$ goes after people, they should have to PROVE that there is shady business deals going on. Just cause M$ says "JUMP" companies shouldnt bend over and let Billy G take 'em for a ride.
There seems to be a large trend of "Nannyhood" going on here. Large groups monitoring and keeping track of your business. All in the name of the customer. This doesnt only apply to Software Piracy, it applys to every aspect of our lives.
People need to start to seeing beyond the issues, and see how this "Nanny" movement is starting to control our lives.
Ok, enough of a rant, I'm extremely tired of Big Brother and Big Mother spoon feeding information to JQ Public.
-All of your base are belong to us. But you may file an appeal. Then submit a motion. Lobby, then pass into law.
We have a couple WinME machines where I work and its an accomplishment if they don't crash once or twice during a workday ... but *I* would be the bad guy if I grabbed a NT WKS disk and downgraded to a stable os?
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
A couple years ago the company that I worked for started getting theats from microsoft. They wanted to audit our licenses. The threatened to sue us a bunch of times, and in the end we just handed over $250 000 to make them go away. They said the money was for CALS and Office. I think it was just protection money. Kind of like giving the bullys at school your lunch money.
Anyway, if you want to avoid this situation, just pirate everything. In our case, we were trying to do the right thing. We called to get estimates on some exchange licenses. The sales lady asked a bunch of questions... how many clients... do they all need it... how many servers. All the questions seemed innocent enough. In the end, they took our answers, looked at the number of licenses they knew we had, and they decided we needed to buy more.
Need a website host? Try out http://WebQualityHost.net
They may not be doing anything illigal, but it threatens practical use of software like the Terminal Server, or like Internet Information Server. MS 'threatens innovation' (innovative use of Terminal Server in this case) ;-) , except of course some company would actually seek software with more practical licisensing.
(-% TwistedMind %-)
These companies don't think they're pirating software, Microsoft does. This is all about intrepretation and Microsofts interpretation is that you can't transfer liscenses (if you upgrade to a newer machine or in some cases just newer hardware). There are issues with seat licences with their server OSes too. When originally released NT was never, ever going to have per user client licences (Novell did that and that was evil, Microsoft told us). Then they created Windows NT 4.0 with, guess what, per seat licences, lying bastards.
.NET components check your licenses with the Microsoft home office, and that after you have upgraded your hardware and/or your whole PC you will be conviently asked for your credit card #.
Microsoft is moving to per seat licences for almost all their new software. This is harder than hell to keep up with, espically if the licencses aren't transferrable.
Don't be suprised if the first
"...even if this means paying for certain copies of Windows twice. At least you know you are legit."
...just to make sure it's there ?
Is that like installing it twice ?
__________________________________
Free your mind - Flush your toilet
Whenever I talked to a client during a consulting gig about upgrades to MS products we had two conversations. One was the technology upgrade (what they would be recieving in terms of "features"), the other was the license upgrade (what new rules were introduced with this release of the license).
Office 97 had the new restriction of "any device that may use Office 97 functionality, ie: a pager, must be individually licensed". (This is a quote from memory taken from a QnA off TechNet).
The Terminal Server upgrade (from WinFrame) had similar restrictions in that "any machine that may access the terminal server must be (permenantly) licensed for NT Workstation (and any Office 97 apps that will be run there)".(Once again the quote is from memory...)
The article is technically accurate in that this is the new licensing model (for most products) from Microsoft. Concievably, if you access a Office 97 application through a Terminal Server session on Linux (via MetaFrame) YOU WOULD NEED A NT LICENSE AND AN OFFICE 97 LICENSE FOR YOUR LINUX WORKSTATION!
What really bothers me is that this is OLD news. Anybody that has any touch with MS should have known this. How could an IT department roll out 10,000 desktops based on a license and not actually read the license.
I seriously doubt they are counting lost time to audits in those calculations. Just a thought.
I totally agree, especially after seeing them at work. Their answer to everything, and I mean everything, was, "Oh, you need to do X, well that's easy, just write a COM object." And when you asked them how they would do X with a COM object they would say, "Oh, well I'll have to get back to you, I did something like that a couple of months ago, I'll look at the code and get back to you." They never would.
Unfortunately, our client at the time was a non technical bunch (.COMers)and believed that MS was the only way. We were about 45% of a big integration project. Licensing drove the cost of their app up to $750,000 US. They planned on selling it for a cool Mil. To my knowledge (no longer w/ the company) they still haven't sold it to anyone.
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
Astroturfers run out of moderation points.
Random permutations insightful. That makes the whole mess funny.
Get over the myth. Once Linux is installed (presumably by competent IT staff) it is no harder to use than Windows.
My Dad is a computer incompetent. Way back before I started using Linux, I let my Dad use my Windows98 machine. He managed to start it and then some how preceeded to trash my start menu. He deleted everything, all because he did not now how to click on solitaire.
Flash forward to this year. No more training than before, but the same man can log into GNOME (same username and password as email, yeah I know lax security but big whoop on a desktop), get on the Web, play some simple games, and type a letter. I never showed him how to use Linux, he just figured it out from trying his email username, and guessing that the thing named Kword in the Office menu was a word processor. If he can do it, why can't some sales marketroid?
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
With companies like Burlington Coat Factory and large parts of the Mexican government leading the way, perhaps we'll see corporations deploy Linux to the desktop as a way to minimize TCO and eliminate licensing issues and the consequent legal costs.
Did you actually say that?
You see, Burlington Coat Factory and the Mexican governement cannot be leaders, 'cause they are not respected by anyone.
The next state is Bankruptcy.
So goes the corporate cycle. Innovation first, then when that becomes too difficult, marketing sells junk for a while, then you finally use lawyers to force people to pay up as long as you can.
RamBus is actually quite innovative. They started in the last phase of the corporate cycle.
Microsoft is there now.
Like your free IE? Expect to start paying for it within two years. With their browser market share, they can start extending what they've embraced, if they haven't already. Like the free MS Reader? Once they own the e-book market, look for that to cost too. The only reason MS Word readers are free is that there's so little demand for them. Everyone has Word (or something that will read .doc files until they change the format again.)
If everyone is using MS, then it's easier for someone to pay more to keep using MS than it is to use something non-MS. With their huge market share, MS is the standard. Don't like their propritary format? Tough. Don't like the content-protection? Live with it. Don't want your personal information transmitted to marketers? Conspiracy nut. Complain? NO WINDOWS FOR YOU! What are you going to do? Use EMACS? You'll be the highest-tech Luddite. All the multimedia content out on the Internet (built on non-MS systems even) will be useless to you because you hold to your principle.
This is why MS is dangerous, this is why their monoploy is wrong. For all the Libertarian out there who said that while MS was wrong, the DOJ was more wrong, let me make this clear. MS will take away your options and your rights in the new high-tech world. Imagine the complaints about the Sorenson codec applied to everything from .mpg to .html (oops, .htm).
-sk
since when does a private entity have the right to audit, search and harass ?
just tell them to fuck off, that's it ! then sue them, and hope you win...
but I don't believe they have any legal right to "audit" you
You have a constitution, read it !
Why doesn't M$ go after the warez kids who peddle around pirated copies of Windows and other software? I think it's because of two reasons.
One, Microsoft can more easily extract money out of people who are trying to do it legally. An organization that can afford several hundred Windows license has money. If they mess up, Microsoft can extract lots of money out of them.
Two, allowing a certain amount of pirating HELPS Microsoft. Think about it. When a somewhat competent 15 year-old gets his hands on software like Win2K, he learns it very well. Down the road a few years, his employer will ask him what software the company needs to run properly.
"Uh, 200 copies of Windows 2000, 5 copies of Win2K server, and 200 copies of Microsoft Office.
A $400 lost turned into a LOT of profit. Microsoft, in the mean time, is at Redmond going, "CHA CHING! CHA CHING!"
Trolls make great pets. Adopt one today!
NT and W2K are capable of being locked down fairly well. The problem is, doing this reduces the utility of the PC to boatanchor status, given the usage culture of Windoze borgslaves.
You can't install anything, frequently preferences and other settings cannot be saved, etc.
So what happens, is that people run it as Administrator, and the fun begins.
The PHBs love Microsoft, because MS recognizes how unthinking most of them are. Oooo, it's pretty, I have a place to click...
First of all, there is no MS Access equivalent. That would mean we'd have to switch over all these little programs that have maybe 10 users to another system.
StarOffice can open & front-end for pre-existing access databases.
Having said that, this isn't exactly a seamless process. Firstly, StarOffice interprets Access queries as tables (ie as the _product_ of a query) so while queries that are a long-ago designed part of your database that don't need redesigning aren't going to be a problem, queries that _do_ need changes from time to time either have to have them redesigned from Access or completely redone on the staroffice side, complete with re-hacking all the dependencies accross the whole &*^%ing database to 'fix' it all. Problem 2 is that StarOffice doesn't give you any of the forms you've carefully madepretty in Access. You have to re-do all your forms from scratch in StarOffice.
I guess I should say the context I have this from is discovering we had more M$ Office installs than we had licenses for. I convinced the powers that be to let me uninstall the excess copies of Office & install the win32 version of StarOffice instead. Since we have several large pre-extant Access databases which I _didn't_ want to redesign from scratch, we now do design changes from machines with legal copies of Office and use StarOffice as a frontend for everyone else. This works fine - limiting the number of people who can do design changes is nice - and you can do data entry, searching, new queries etc from StarOffice no problem. It took a day and a half to re-do all the pretty forms in Staroffice, but this worked out way cheaper than paying for another 8 licenses for Office or whatever it was.
I have no experience with StarOffice on *nix, but there have been several 'ask slashdot' threads on getting StarOffice on *nix to frontend for an Access database, so I'd start there if I was contemplating that kind of setup.
these are the reasons I think EULA's are not legal:
They're not avaliable prior to purchase.
No retailer allows the return of software if you don't like the license.
If a retailer *DID* allow the return, MS should bare the cost of that return (restocking fees, shipping etc), but they don't.
A contract is an agreement between two parties ... usually both parties recieve some benifit from the contract ... in the EULA, theres no agreement its "take it or leave it." And the Eula provides no benifit (IE waranty, fitness of purpose) and seeks only to benifit the software company.
Last but not least, a legally enforcable contract has to have a minimum of 3 signatures, the notary and the two parties ... The notary serves several purposes -- she authenticates both parties, can be called upon in a legal dispute, and establishes that both parties are aware of the contents of the contract, which I believe is called [IANAL] "communication." It is my belief that "press f8 to continue" [NT4 installer] is not a sufficent "notary". Can you prove I read and understood the entire agreement then pressed f8 ?
What if I gave someone 5 bucks to install a MS os on my machine ... would I be then bound by the EULA ? I didn't agree to it, someone else did ... is this situation is analgous to purchasing a computer with preinstalled software?
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
> I guess the outlook for alternative OSs and office suites is VERY good.
:)
Outlook doesn't run on alternative OSes, nitwit.
Virg
>Seriously though, why should we be feeling sorry
>for these people? So they didn't bother to
>document how many licenses they have and how
>many desktops they have running which
>software.... how exactly is that some sort of
>Microsoft problem?
This isn't about keeping track of licences, this is about microsoft squeezeing large companies all they are worth for licenseing costs. This is microsofts problem, wether they realize it or not, because of the fact that people will realize a say, "hey wait, I could run the exact same setup for 90% the cost, including the salerys of high level sysadmins.
>It would appear that CmdrTaco is attempting to
>scare people by giving the impression that
>Microsoft runs around with a club trying to beat
>people over the head for more money (that may or
>may not be the case.)
This IS the case, read the article.
>First of all, there is no MS Access equivalent.
There is if you know what your doing. Eg, postgresql, mysql, oracle, sybase, etc. backend with whatever frontend you plan on writing/using
>That would mean we'd have to switch over all>br>>these little programs that have maybe 10 users to
>another system. There really isn't any RAD
>programming system for Linux (Klyx ain't there
>yet.), so that means a lot of time and effort for
>something pretty small.
Its Kylix btw. and RAD, lets see, you seem to have left out a few: perl, python, tcl, php, I can go on and on.
>When you compare all that to the cost of Windows
>2000 (less than $10,000 for 7 copies of server
>and 1000 user CALs under our select
>contract), and it really doesn't make sense to
>switch.
You pay $10,000 for licences of microsoft products, and pay people $60,000 a year to run and maintain thease systems, where as you go with the unix/linux method, you pay almost $0 for the licences, assumeing your not using oracle or something to that effect, and then you pay people $60,000 a year to run/maintain the systems. Which is cheaper? You take the guess.
The goal of computer science is to build something that will last at least until we've finished building it.
There's little doubt that if M$ had been so aggressive about enforcing it's licenses long ago, M$ would not have the market share it has today. Now, their market has more or less reached a saturation point. Acceptance of new products like Win2k and WinME has been underwhelming. They are resorting to hardball tactics to make up for profit shortfalls. I'm sure many customers did not go with Microsoft with the expectation that M$ would later impose onerous audit requirements on them. Thus, the perceived terms of ownership have been switched from the ones these companies were baited in with.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
There can be only one kind of a force that can confront Microsoft and make it lose. This force is Microsoft itself.
Linux won't be able to achieve a victory over Microsoft alone. Microsoft's got much more audience, more money, and it can draft along lots of programmers to shorten the development cycles immensly. However Microsoft's corporate attitudes can cross out all the resources they've gathered up until now.
It's all quite simple: at the moment corporate officials understand that the Microsoft way is too expensive to follow, they will start looking for ways to detach themselves from Microsoft. Not immediately, not completely, hovewer Linux enterprises should gradually become less of a remote possibility, and more of obvious reality.
The only condition for such a favourable development is the creation of viable desktop environments for Linux. They are as necessary to corporate adoption of Linux as oxygen is for breathing. If this condition is met, it is probable that we will yet witness our foe's destruction of itself.
Lets assume you are a new startup, little funding, and a few good techie friends. You want to make a solid productive and efficient company. You could buy M$ products, deal with licensing problems and the extra overhead of fixxing their buggy OS. But this would allow you to hire cheap M$ users that don't need to know anything about how computers work. They'll still break their computers as usual, because they don't know how they work. But these people don't usually cost a lot, depending on their job.
;)
Or you could decide from the get go to be a linux shop, hire people with the requirement that they either know linux or are willing to learn. Tell your users what OSs work, what tools work for their needs. And if they don't exist that's what a tools department is for. Build the tools you need and build them on open standards using xml/html web frontends to databases using perl as the glue, etc. There are very easy and efficient means of solving almost any problem with unix and the right people. The hard part is finding the right people so you will need to be a bit more picky and go through a longer interrogation process.
In the end you won't have to worry about licenses, but you will face a higher cost at educating your people. The benefit is you will have smarter, more competent people. A more tightly integrated software package built on open software that you KNOW you can fix any problems that arrise. Problems will happen less often relieving IT stress and time (maybe your IT staff could be part time tools developers as well). And maybe you will save money when you find out your only costs are your employees and hardware. Then if are you a caring manager/CEO and really want to make a difference, what about paying everyone a little above market value with generous raises and cut your own salery down to theirs, so everyone gets a nice slice of the pie they build.
But please don't listen to me if you're a manager or already know what you're doing. I will do this when I start my company, but I don't want a lot of competition.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but it says the company was running terminal emulator software. I know that Citrix charges per license for every user that would be accessing the server and using that software. Now granted, Citrix needs to run on top of something else, but wouldn't the company then be paying twice? The entire idea of marketting a server software like NT server etc is for similar purposes.
"Turns out the Microsoft licence costs were something like 3 times the company's licence costs..."
Huh? I don't get it.
Later,
ErikZ
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
If you want to deal with Big Brother, fine. On the other hand, you call me if you want to pay 10,000 Win2k license for a reliable solution and I'll put together a team of crazy programmer that'll do the job 10x better and that will rely on a free operating system. It's a one time flat fee and no one will bug you for license. Never deal with big brother.
Jeremie Plante Firmware Designer @ Zucotto Wireless
So you're telling me that MS, a big business company is trying to get money out of other big business companies who often have questionable practices and think that they can get software for free. I have nothing against that action, why should we be be the only ones who get screwed? At least most of those big companies deserved it.
>that are next big _similar_ project used Domino and Sametime.
ouch, I'm very sorry about that. I guess that's one way to punish employees for messing up the MS licenses.
room101 -- how much can you stand before they break you?
(they always break you eventually)
That a company that sues its own customers is headed for the end.
We can only hope...
For every (say) $200 seat licence for the product, the customer owed $600 in seat licences to Microsoft. Similar story on the server side.
Microsoft isn't interested in just seeing a bunch of license documents, they are interested in seeing all your machines and correlating them with a bunch of license documents.
Dude you're like a bit late...
"Look where we worship" -- Jim Morrison
Instead, go download Sybase 11.0.3.3 for Linux or FreeBSD. It works just the same, and it is free for almost all commercial use.
MS SQL server and Sybase were once the same product. MS ODBC drivers work with Sybase, and the SQL syntax is pretty much identical.
If you need support, just upgrade. No, you aren't buying a product with the spectacular benchmarks of SQL Server 2000, but then again, you aren't buying anything at all, so why complain?
Ever used Exchange 2000 and Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server?
Trust me Domino and Sametime was a big step up. E2K was so badly rushed to market that when it came out last fall, it was hardly any better than beta. We didn't have to rebuild our Domino server at least once every other week and Sametime certainly scaled up a lot better than E2K Conf. MS designed the E2K to scale, but only by adding machines and tweaking the topology for front-end and back-end servers. We were able to achieve comparable results with half the machines using Domino and Sametime.
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
Traditionally, these kinds of applications on UNIX and mainframes are written to hide the operating system completely; the sales force would get a product that's highly customized and specific to their applications, something that's easy to administer, and requires virtually no training. They'd get something on their desk (often an X terminal) that requires no maintenance or upgrades, doesn't crash, and is up all the time.
Windows has lowered expectations. On Windows, people get a Windows desktop with Excel and some poorly written custom VisualBasic program. With Windows, your sales force has to deal with all sorts of computer machinery, moving files around, defragmenting their disk, upgrading, etc., that has nothing to do with the task at hand. To be sure, the Windows solution is lower cost in terms of purchase price, but in terms of usability, support, maintenance, or training, it is worse in pretty much every respect.
when i worked at a computer store you had to purchase certain types of hardware in order to also be able to buy oem software. iirc, in order to get an oem copy of windows you had to buy either a harddrive, mb+cpu, or a cdrom drive. it's been a while but it was something like that.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
The GPL is a bit different from other licenses.
Red Hat might refuse to answer your questions, but there's no way they could make you take the software off you machines. Not the same thing at all.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
At the expense of getting into blatant self-aggrandizement, one answer to the question lies in Retiring Accidental Windows Servers with Virtual Samba
davecb@spamcop.net
Yes, nicely said, and let us be frank: it's the new Microsoft revenue model.
.Net are ludicrously bad.
A flat PC market means a flat OS market. There have been diminishing returns since the great Win 95 sell-through, and the prospects for XP and
Hence this tactic. It can be expressed in a maxim. Call it Gates' Law:
"When you no longer can earn money selling what you make, it's time to force consumers to pay you again for what they've already bought."
I agree that it shall backfire in the long run. A company that wanted to destroy its name would be hard pressed to buy the kind of ill will and animosity engendered by this policy of license strip mining. Or as the Coen Brothers put it in "The Big Lebowski": "Do you see, Donny? Do you see?!? This is what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass!"
I usually post this rant anonmyous to protect my karma, but I'm willing to suffer if it will get this point across. Anyone who uses the phrase "it's a proven fact" (or "science has shown", or any of their variants) without providing a damn reputable URL to back it up should be modded down immediately.
Sad thing is that Exchange 6 "Platinum" was originally supposed to ship in 1998. It was rushed to market, and 2 years late, and had a big feature cut after the last beta, all at the same time
Of course that's nothing new for Exchange - the original version was something like 6 years late (was briefly beta'ed for OS/2 in the late 80s.)
Here:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/18002.html
Scary stuff about thier IM license agreement.. just another reason why I dont use IM's anymore (the main reason it is really cuts into your time when everyone you ever meet is IMing you..)
----- The internet has given everyone the ability to have their voice heard equally as loud.. even if they shouldn't be
Well guys, do you have any other ideas on how to stop software piracy? Don't tell me about giving everything away for free, look at RHAT or LNUX share price graph instead. They're trying hard to stop people from stealing software from them. The new product activation thing should eliminate some of the problems, but not all. You certainly won't be happy if someone steals software which you've spent billions of bucks and years of time developing and marketing. Buy software, watch for licensing and have no hassle. GPL is dead end. Nobody eats solar energy, and everything besides solar energy costs money. Sorry guys, human race isn't ready for communism yet.
Doesn't everyone here go ape-shit whenever someone violates the GPL? I mean, what's the difference? Why the double standard? Not flaming (I'd be AC otherwise), I really don't get it.
You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. --CmdrTaco
. . .
The cost for these licenses was pretty high (as you can imagine). That didn't include the licenses for the software we wanted to run, just the platform to remotely run it. Part of Microsoft's problem is its inability to do usage licensing, which would save companies lots of money, rather than the "if you're using it, you need to pay us, even if it's just one time" licenses they currently have.
Anybody who thinks they can save money going with Microsoft products is deluding themselves. Their license schemes simply don't scale across organizations.
Now it is becoming clear to the DOJ... the right action would be to force Micro$oft to open source Windoze in all it's forms... under the GPL... if this had happened well the world would be a better windozeless place... for there software would have been prooven to be the buggy insecure flawed piece of #$*! we all know it is.
#set prompt = $user.$group @ `hostname -s`#
root.wheel @ reality#
Remove *your pants* to send me email.
Much cheaper if you do not need LISP.
Moof!
Now that you've killed tens of thousands of dollars our of our tech budget, I can convince the boss to migrate to Linux. Everybody wins!
The Internet is generally stupid
I've done a search of my hard drive, and found that have 1000 copies of the GPL. Is that enough if I get audited, or do I need more that say I can use and distribute software in any manor I see fit as long as I contribute any changes to the community?
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
They are easy "public" targets that they can make their point on. If everyone sees that M$ can force money out of a small gov't entity for non-compliance then everyone should be shaking in their boots, because they could be vulnerable too.
Not only that, but they are easy targets. You really don't have to try to track a gov't entity down, unless it's the CIA or the Post Office who delivers your mail. Like you said..
small local governments, that probably have little organization and poor record keeping, as far as IS is concerned anyway.
Mod me Mad!!
I bet it would cost less to employee a few good linux admins than it would to waste resources on tracking licences :P
I see a lot of people that have said "you should keep better records!"
I am a student at a high school and also work with the technology dert there.
Ranging from every three to nine months, we get new computers in. We have individual licenses for every machine as the district changis its opinion of the best OS every shipment it seems. Now I am 100% positive that EVERY machine has a liscence, but it would be IMPOSSIBLE to find every copy.
There are two reasons for this. The first is machine imaging. The second and the biggest problem is the number of people that havwe been in charge. They got rid of the last guy who knew a hell of a lot more than anyone else and ran the place perfectly (one guy, 600 computers). They now have 2 people that work on them but everyone puts stuff different places.
I think if/when we are audited, the district would be running to CompUSA and buying 400 copies of the OS.
Your post summed up the precise reason why it is that Microsoft should play nice. Currently they are able to trick nearly every business in the United States into mass deploying their OS and their expensive office suite.
If pressed hard enough these businesses will undoubtedly find out that for very little expense they can quickly and easily migrate their Microsoft Office data to Star Office (which is free).
Sure, Star Office isn't quite MS Office, but it is much closer than most people think, and it is a heck of a lot cheaper.
> Red Hat is notorious for charging a lot for > tech support... They have to... they give away their os!!
Hopefully Linux (or better yet, FreeBSD) finally becomes mainstream enough so that we don't have to put up with this bs.
Man Microsoft is sounding more and more like a lone shark the more I read on about it.
But come on its not like I would let people take free copies of my product(none of corse but lets assume I do) and not do nothing about it. I would go out and break a few legs and tell them to give me the money too. People just get mad when other people want there money.
I would too I always want something for free...
So, buy a XBox, and help Microsoft go under!
This only works if you don't buy their software. Obviously, they intend to make money on XBox -- by licensing software or developers who make software. So it only helps them go under if you don't buy their software.
Ideally, there an open-source way to make software will appear. Then we can all buy subsidized XBox's, courtesy of MS.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
That applies only towards the government in a criminal trial. I'm not certain about civil trials, but I don't think 'innocent until proven guilty' applies to that even.
In most offices I visit, eveyone down to the lowliest receptionist has the latest-greatest Winbox, decked out with the latest version of Office. This is overkill if I've ever seen it. They upgrade it as soon as the upgrades come out, and have people on staff to keep it all from crashing. It's really ridiculous. How many secretaries really *need* Excel, or Word for that matter? Most businesses could get by just fine without this stuff. Recently, a friend started working for an internet startup as a technical expert and author. What they gave her to work with made sense: a cheap Emachines with a copy of MS Works to do her writing with. Even Notepad would have been fine, though most companies would have made sure she had Word. Everyone else got pretty much the same deal, using the included software wherever possible. Instead of Outlook, they used Outlook Express and Windows Address Book, or the free Calendar services on the Netscape website. The only ones with expensive software were some 3D artists. If a little more functionality is needed, there's nothing wrong with Staroffice. The fact is, computers with fancy, overkill software are just a job perk, a luxury thing like a fancy office. Very few companies really need all that to get their work done. And the ones who do are usually better off with superior, non-MS products, such as Framemaker, Autocad, Photoshop, Act, Dreamweaver, and Quark. Excel is Microsoft's only really good office app, but most people never even scratch the surface of what it can do. Most companies *would* be just fine with Staroffice, or the KDE/Gnome stuff. The only trouble is having to do business with others who have bought into the MS way.
The easy answer here is: Consider Linux
r2~In more detail: The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) includes cost to train staff, cost to maintain the machines, cost of licenses, technical support, etc. The TCO of Windows can vary greatly depending on what the workstation is being used for, as would any system, really.
While Linux obviously has the licensing costs beaten, the larger concern is that Linux takes skilled people to operate and maintain. While this is true, for the same cost as an NT admin, you could probably have an admin that understands Linux and can set up end user workstations to require less maintenance as well as increase productivity.
The numbers are subjective, but in reality, many non-techie workstations are used to perform simple tasks. Many companies also, in their drive to come up to date, have intranets and web interfaces to their information systems. There's no reason to continue running Windows on such systems if all work functions can be performed through a web browser, and additionally, the admin can lock these systems down so that the end user can't screw them up. The fact that they can't be screwed up means that they're lower maintenance, and the fact that they'll probably crash less means that they result in less productivity losses.
There are many cases where Windows can be completely removed. Companies should invest the effort in determining just how much of their infrastructure is really Windows dependent rather than just going "All 500 workstations run Windows, we need to stay with Windows". Companies such as mine would be glad to perform such jobs. :)
Obviously, this won't work in every scenario. Some platforms just require Windows, and it's a necessary and maybe even desired cost. Given the proper conditions, which are not uncommon conditions, Linux can in fact lower the TCO.
(Some people wince at the idea of locking a machine down tightly because it won't allow them to run games, but plenty of games are web oriented nowadays. Yahoo Games make any boring computer task tolerable, for what it's worth)
You can be sure we are taking note.
The very monopoly that MS think they have might be their downfall when alternative OS's come to market.
We will certainly be able to offer very cost effective site licenses for PetrOS(tm) when the wincompatibility is finished.
Peter
Or don't.
P.S. You want to say that Linux can overcome inertia. But it doesn't really matter since it's an inappropriate reference.
[venting hat on]
Where I work, at a major state university, we have a campus agreement with MS. Basically, any Windows OS (except the server family) we can upgrade to the latest version (eg, 95 to 2k) without any licensing problems.
A professor got a laptop from our manufacturer (large computer company..we have another agreement with them as well) and it came with 98 on it because it wouldn't cost us extra...in other words, if we wanted ME, NT4, or 2k on it, we'd have to pay a little extra. Because of our MCA with MS, we didn't, and now it's biting us in the ass.
Anyways, I upgraded the laptop to 2k, and everything works *peachy* except for undocking from the APR. I've gone through everything...shutting down excess software (eg, 3Com said HotSync could cause laptops difficulty when undocking), disconnecting hardware (eg, the PCMCIA burner, keyboard into the APR, etc etc). Still no dice, so I think it is a hardware problem with the APR because I find out the APR isn't for that model of the laptop.
After about 10 calls to the computer manufacturer, I find out that they use the same APR for 4 series of laptops. I'm back at nothing at this point.
I call up tech support to see what they think of, and find out about this new 'policy' they have with MS about support.
Apparently, MS has an agreement with the computer manufacturer that says the manuf. can't support a MS OS other than the one that comes on the machine from the factory. If I want support, I have to call MS, which, of course, is pay-per-hour.
Our MCA with MS costs a pretty penny every year. Our contract with the manuf. also isn't cheap. With about 15000 machines on campus, of which about 12000 are MS, it's almost cheaper for us to ditch the MCA and just pay the extra $100 to go from 98 to 2k with the manuf. Talk about being fuct up.
To add insult to injury, one research group has paid the fee to get the source to do additional development (focus is on encrypted file systems w/2k).
[venting hat off]
Look at it this way. What exactly do (litigation) lawyers contribute to society? They charge you an arm and a leg to protect you from or launch viscious attacks against ... other lawyers! It's kind of like the tech industry : the bigger it gets, the more techies per capita you need. The difference is that people can then use their computers and various widgets, while a lawyer, as the joke goes, keeps screwing you after you're dead.
--
Dyolf Knip
I don't approve of MS, in fact I don't like them, BUT they have the legal right to charge for the software they make, just as we have the right to give what we do away free and open source.
I will go as far as to say the following (and probably be mod down for saying it): MS has done some good for the computer industry, but the fact that they are beived to be easy to use people who would not have gotten computer with out MS products do now with MS products and that does benifite us linux users because it helps keep the price of the hardware we want lower.
Also a note about a liecence aduit my university got hit with by MS, Pitt failed they had the same copy of 98 on all the CSSD (Computer Services and System Development) main office. MS could have hit them hard right then and there, but (to my supprise) they gave them 24 hours to fix it and they could go with out penalty, I thought that was an intersting note, and out of MS's caracter, and nice (ok that last word is going to hurt me)
If one says "proven" without providing an axiomatic base, a reasonable method of inference, and a consistant argument, I don't think you should believe them. But then, that's I'm studying mathematics. ;-)
-Paul Komarek
This was inevitable. As competition increased and the open-source movement started to rattle the cage of redmond MS turns to the same old tactics - bullying. It's not that they can't license their product, and it's not that they want to make sure that those that use their product are complying. It's the simple fact is that they need to stop using tactics that alienate their user base. They've decided to halt the licensing of W95/98 in order to push corps, businesses, Universities, etc into buying W2K and soon XP. Next they'll be muscling people to use their ASP/.NET. Why bother. If your forced to upgrade all your systems eventually, use a system that gives you excellent support, access to source, and the ability to configure the system the way you need it without worrying about endless patches, security holes, and exorbinant costs. Time for Linux, Solaris, BSD... anything but the bottomless pit called MS.
Umm, MCS is a profit center for Microsoft.
Just read any of their quarterly reports.
I've had dealings with MCS and have never encountered this type of attitude. Although we never told them to go design a program for us, but rather bounced ideas off them for potentional solutions to problems we were having.
Keep going Microsoft! Tighten those screws. Eventually these big companies will say screw you to your bloatware! -ted
Not now, but if UCITA passes in many states, they may have that right, the alternative being the right to disable the disputed software. (Of course, if the IEEE and other groups succeed in getting Linux and other OSS freed from the restructive warrentee portions of UCITA where it passes, then there is every reason not to use Microsoft and every reason to use Linux/BSD, etc.)
Now, Microsoft has also been cracking down on the average consumer as well, by requiring registration of some versions of Office 2000. However, Microsoft, I believe, is making a terrible mistake. In cracking down on piracy, they run the risk of alienating their customers and allowing competitors and opening that they otherwise would not have, even with inferior products.
Please bear in mind that I am not advocating piracy because I want to see open source succede (I see Piracy as THE major threat to OSS in terps of brainshare).
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I can only say you ought to have looked at the licensing more carefully when you bought the systems. Commercial software sometimes has a very high cost and some companies are real cock gobblers about it. Microsoft has two goals in this case, they want to pester the company into upgrading and they'd also like to make sure they don't have 15,000 computers running Windows and only 5,000 licenses registered to the company. If you made fat bucks from corporate licensing you'd so the same fucking thing. The GPL and Linux wouldn't solve shit. If they can run mission critical stuff on the new system and upgrade all of their hardware with no problem thats great. That however is rarely the case. Open sourced software has its financial disadvantages just like anything from Microsoft. If you're a large company you need software when business demands it not when some kid has time to add features when his school schedule permits. It comes down to either paying for software or pay a full time programming department to work with the open code to give you the features its closed counterpart has already had for years. Open source only causes different problems.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Read every other word in the headline of this story.
From what Richard Stallman said during a visit to my LUG is that the EULA is written between Microsoft and the OEM. You are right with the notary. If you are a pc maker and want to sell Windows with each unit, you need to contact microsoft and hire a notary and all three sing the agreement. Ir you recall the average user does not install windows but just plugs the computer in and works on it. The licence on the install screen is just a printed copy of the agreement between the OEM and Microsoft to remind the OEM what it agreed to during each installation. Basically if you pirate a copy of WIndows you steal not from Microsoft but from an OEM. This is why MS usually does not prosicute individuals who casual copy. I find the fact the Microsoft is prosicuting bussiness and not he OEM's quite disturbing. On one side they claim the agreement is not between them and users so they can force what we pay for for each system, but on the other side they now claim the EULA agreement is for corporations and not OEM's so its ok to go after them even if they paid for each copy of windows but lost the stupid hologram logo. I believe they are bullies and twist legal contexts to which ever servers there purpose. Since bussinesses and corporations did not sign a legally binding EULA they may have a weak case. It is up to the OEM to provide the licenses and not us.
http://saveie6.com/
I've never had this happen to me, my office runs OS/2, AmigaOS and MacOS. (so shoot me, half of the office does video editing and gfx work) I never have had IBM knocking on my door asking about the copies of OS/2. I've never had AmigaOS send an audit notice asking if the ROM's of the systems are real or if I'd spent a few thousand making ROM's. I've never even gotten a dancing telegram from Apple saying "hey, are those iMacs all legal?".
.NET and it looks like it will soon be needed for every aspect of Microsoft's life. One nice thing about shrink-wrapped licenses, the guys that put them in there can invalidate them at any time, and change the rules without you being able to do a thing.
But I can understand why companies feel a need to rattle sabres over licenses. Thing is, there is no set license in Microsoft's case, people say 'just use license X" or "hey, I've never had a problem" but the fact remains that Microsoft appears to be changing games on people in order to solidify their grasp of the market. They're hitting government agencies the hardest however I have noticed.
I can't wait for them to knock on my door and I dare them to find a copy of M$ anything running on a machine, unless they cound a single copy of M$ AmigaBasic (which we do have the license for I'd note).
For those that fear auditing, be honest, is being strong and holding-to your Windows that important? You'll see them auditing your competitors, other businessess, but not you... until they have noone left to audit, then they turn their noose in your direction. With what's happening with Microsoft, I can easily understand their mentality, they think everyone is out to cheat them of their money, period.
Ah, so you have all of your license material, no problem.... but wait, Microsoft changed the license so all of yours are no good. Your Enterprise license needs to cover everybody that might access your systems, customers included. $300,000 fine, thank you, plus $480,000 in new licenses. Next year, "Hey wait, we changed it again..." and the next and the next... it's how they'll keep making money even when you've bought it and are just using it.
Their need to be making constant money over one-time money deals appears to be taking over. This is their mindset behind
So you finally decide to drop Microsoft, but you don't see how you can. Well, let's look at the options, there are many of them.
You have Linux, QNX, OS/2, macintosh, Solaris for starters. And I'm just bringing up industry robust OS's with a ton of software and commercial support. Are you going to say that between all four of them that they can't serve your needs? Linux, new kid, well prooven, has capabilities and networking abilities that Windows just dreams about. QNX, industry leader with 20 years experience, and in it's niche it'll take on anyone. OS/2, an oldie but a goodie, plus it's got IBM behind it, and if you're a business, nobody ever got fired for buying IBM; that it can run Windows software natively doesn't hurt either. Macintosh, formerly the art-lover, with MacOS X it's become a serious workhorse that would make Windows beg for mercy all the while having all of the applications you will ever need.
So as you can see, you have more options than just Linux.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Everyone here seems to think that the only other option to Windows is Linux. While that is a an option with many Pro's (multipal platforms, open source, free, stability) the big Con happens to be the learning curve along with some support issues and big name app problems. Looking though the posts I did not see a mention of the Mac OS, be it Mac OS 8-9.1 or OS X. I believe the above Cons are issued (at least better than Linux). I am aware of the big Con for the Mac OS. The fact that you need a Mac to run it but it's worth the mention.. might as well phase out the x86 hardware while your are phasing out MS OS =)
How many people do you know who've actually read all of their software licenses and attachments/explantions?
It sounds like part of the problem, too, is that Microsoft is enforcing aspects of a contract that aren't necessarily written down when people sign the contract.
I know it says up to 35 simultaneous users, but our internal documents (trade secret, you know) indicate that this means up to 35 UNIQUE simultaneous users. If you have 45 users -- any two of which could be using the system simultaneously, then you have to pay for 45 users.
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Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Sure, Star Office isn't quite MS Office, but it is much closer than most people think, and it is a heck of a lot cheaper.
I should add the other part of being able to talk my bosses into migrating some boxes to StarOffice was that I'd been using it exclusively for 6 months prior to the switch without telling anyone. When I got the inevitable "but everyone else uses Word, and we have to be able to trade documents with them" complaint, I could point out that I'd been exchanging documents with the person in question for 6 months (complete with oddities such as multiple-author annotations etc) and they hadn't known I was using something other than Word to do so.
Is it just me, or is it actually funny that your reply to my post (which genericly commented that "If pressed hard enough these businesses will undoubtedly find out that for very little expense they can quickly and easily migrate their Microsoft Office data to Star Office" got modded higher than my original post, which described a real life example and some of the real life problems in doing so. : ) Ah, slashdot..
We just replaced a fried VCR and the new one's warranty registration form has more (and more intrusive) questions than a census form. How long until you have to answer questions like these in order to register your new software in order to get it to work?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Umm, I was mistaken thinking it was well known, like the moon affects tides (also no link) but a quick search on google turned up this; http://www.cala.com/cala12.htm I have seen lots of products that are no longer avaliable or very high priced because of missuse and lawsuits. Many people make career decisions to stay out of the laywers sights, instead of where they can provide the most benifit. I for one am in that group. I chose to work on electronics instead of medicine because of the risk of lawsuits. I could have made lots more as a skilled doctor. Many electronics techs are not the best paid because much stuff is cheaper to replace than pay the hourly to get it fixed. People don't have that option for their medical care. The article covers a few of the areas that have been eliminated or very high priced due to the shortage of people taking on the responsibility and risk.
The truth shall set you free!
OK, I just looked at thier Q2 report, and there's no mention of MCS being a profit center. They do say that revenues went up. Services/Consulting is not even a seperate line item for Microsoft, so it's tough to say exactly what that means.
My 'break-even' source is MCS consultants themselves, and a friend who independant but in the past has gone in on jobs with a MCS business card. You have a reference that they are anything other than a sales org?
Uhhh... I think the term you are after is DRP - Disaster Recovery Planning.
ERP does stand for Enterprise Resource Planning. However, ERP is to do with planning resources across an enterprise to maximise the efficient use of those resources in the business process. It typically consists of applications to manage the information in accounting, order processing, distribution, procurement and production processes.
MrCreosote Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump! "You're right! There isn't enough room to swing a cat in here!"
"Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse" is not exactly what I'd call a reliable and accurate news source. But much more importantly, they don't provide links or footnotes to any of the frivolous lawsuits they mention in their article. Most US courts now have extensive online documentation. Perhaps CALA is making that stuff up to score points.
The great power of the web is that you don't need trust -- you can prove your case by hyperlinking any major claims. Just do it!
Hey Troll, did you know that GNP is also a function of population? Yes, it's an amazing factoid that even someone like you might understand if your head wasn't crammed so far up your ass. Per capita GNP is, perhaps, just a slightly better way of measuring this. Tell me, is ours the highest of the industrialized nations? It isn't? Well that's a surprise...
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Dyolf Knip