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New Microsoft Feature: Planned Obsolescence
Ryu2 writes: "According to this CNet story, Microsoft is thinking of from its current "perpetual" license scheme to a three-year contract for its enterprise customers, and most of its software. After the three years are up, customers have to pay up again or stop using the software. While the issue of subscriptions has come up before, this seems to imply that Microsoft is abandoning the traditional time-unlimited license altogether. With them setting the precendent, for good or for ill, for many things in the software industry, if this takes hold, how long will it be until every other business software firm jumps on this bandwagon?"
scent = stinks
cents = expensive
sense = Migration
Microsoft's moves are somewhat enigmatic these days, however they have a keen sense of how to make money off of fortune 500 companies who are willing to dish it out after "TRAPPING" themselves amidst an entire MS environment.
Whats sad though, is at this point it would be extremely expensive for companies to switch their entire company (think big companies like Ernst & Young, Citibank, etc.) to switch over to something else overnight. Even if they were to do so, they would also have to determine what other OS to use, and hope it would still have MS support, since many of their clients are likely to prefer *.doc, *.lxs, etc., files, so even if a company were planning a switch it could take years to "plow the road" from the bumps.
With newer companies starting up its a heck of a lot easier a task to do, and I'm sure many here see the recent changes with MS, so news like this is a plus for the Open Source community, who needs to lock down some standards for a change as well.
Define a standard for corporations like a corporate Linux or BSD distribution which doesn't contain 2-3 cd's full of Window Managers, MP3 players, useless and non business related packages. What does 10 Windows Manager have to do with fulfilling the daily tasks of someone like a secretary, or clerical worker? Absolutely none.
Make it a bit more GUI'er for unknowledgeable persons working with the OS.
Raise the documentation standards on the OS. Make a GUI based help system unskilled operators could use instead of `man something` .
Anyways enough swaying off topic many people (I hope) would understand the aura of where that was going. So will this affect sales of MS in the future? Probably minutely since many people like convenience, and are already trapped within an MS environment, and all this bickering amongst the BSD's/Linux users doesn't help, so for someone like a CEO looking in from the outside, they may see alternative OS' (Linux/BSD/other) as more of a problem than a solution.
Create a business like standard for crying out loud. If NASA can send rockets to west bubble fuck, surely someone can create a "Linux/BSD for Incompetent Workers too Lazy or Dumb to Learn"
Want Root?
The OS is coming to a maturity and MS is going through a middle-aged crisis. With Win2K, there really isn't a *need* to upgrade anymore. Its stable and simple refinement is all that it needs. So now we are bound to see useless things like 3D GUIs and 3 year licenses.
I think Win2k was the best and worst thing that ever happened to MS. Its a great OS and the end of their revenue stream. What happens when the market saturates with it? There only chance is to push XP as a subscription into the consumer markets where Win2K doesn't have a foothold yet.
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American businesses aren't taxed on assets, they are taxed on income. I'm not sure where you get the idea that it is otherwise. Perhaps you are confused by the popular misconception that there is an *inventory* tax? Inventory is not legally synonomous with asset. Inventory is an asset * specifically held for resale*. The expense on inventory is not deductable as an * expense* until the item is sold, thus making it APPEAR as if inventory were taxed. It isn't, of course. Purchasing inventory is deducted as an expense against income.
Purchasing software is an *expense* and is therefore deductable against income. However, it is a *capital* expense and must be depreciated over a period of years.
Leased items are an *operating* expense and may be deducted in their entirety in the year of the expendature.
What's more even if your view of taxation were correct software STILL wouldn't be an asset. The value of an asset is what it could be SOLD for.
What can you legally sell a used copy of MS Windows for? That's right boys and girls, you can't legally sell it at all, it has ZERO value!
Money spent on software is, to the value of the company, roughly the same as money spent on toilet paper. It is money flushed down the hole that *reduces* the overall value of the company. That's why purchasing is so loath to get you that copy of " Really spiffy shit 2001" that you want so badly.
Leasing software may increase profit in any given year by allowing the full deduction in that year.
Am I going to lease software for my company? Not on your fscking life. I can obtain all the software I need for free.
KFG
Why should I have to pay for software twice, eh?
Well..
A quick run down of the software I'm using at the moment has shown me that all of it is under 3 years old, with the exception of a couple of NT servers. The idea that people will have to carry on paying for software years after they've bought it isn't new (Ask any Sun/SGI/Oracle user). This sort of thing pushes people into paying more money for software, true, but it also means they're considerably more likely to use more up-to-date versions, have less support/maintainance issues, and generally be happier.
Sure, it'll never work for the home user, but that's not what they're aiming at.
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