Windows on an iMac (says the invoice); Red Hat's Alternative

A user writes "According to a story at The Register, schools who want to take advantage of educational bulk licensing agreements with Microsoft have to count all PCs (and Macs!), even those not running Windows." One package of software applies to all installed PCs and Macs, including those running Linux or BSD, so schools end up paying for stations that Windows (and other programs) cannot or do not run on. Microsoft's justification is that the agreement requires an "institution-wide commitment." Coincidentally, bc90021 points out that "RedHat announced its Linux Pilot Program for schools today. Designed to improve the overall learning experience for children, seven North Carolina school districts have already joined. One county director is quoted as saying: 'With the money we saved from not buying proprietary licenses, the school district purchased additional resources that directly [a]ffected the learning experience of our students and brought us into the 21st century.'"

Comments

*cough* *sputter*

[realgone]

The Microsoft agreements provide other software than the OS. Most Mac users use Office and therefore can benefit from an agreement.

Erm... run that by me again?

Here's a list of the software regulated by this agreement. I'll drop the ones that are currently available for Mac (as listed on the MSFT site) into boldface:

• Desktop Package* (Includes Office, Core CAL & Windows Upgrades)
• Office Standard, Pro and Macintosh Editions
• Windows Desktop Operating System Upgrades
• Core Client Access Licenses (CALs)
• SQL ServerTM CALs
• Visio Professional Edition
• FrontPage
• Visual Studio
• Project
• Publisher
• Encarta Class Server
• Encarta Reference Library and Online Deluxe
• Magic School Bus
• Windows 2000 Professional Step by Step Interactive by Microsoft Press
• Web Publishing Step by Step Interactive by Microsoft Press

Now can you repeat that bit again about Mac users benefiting from this?

Re:Exactly what they used to do with OEM licenses

[Da Schmiz]

Yup...

I couldn't find a reference to that suit, but here's a story at CNet which discusses this. Note this paragraph:

The U.S. government in 1990 accused Microsoft of coercing computer resellers into paying a fee for each PC they shipped, whether or not a Microsoft operating system was actually installed. This action long preceded the separate antitrust case filed in 1998 by the Dept. of Justice and 19 states.

The article is actually discussing a stunt Microsoft pulled to get resellers to tattle on anyone who bought a PC without Windows.

Bill & co. never cease to amaze me -- but what amazes me more is that so few people have caught on to what they're doing.

Re:When will they figure this out?

[phyxeld]

iMacs are perfectly good replacements for windows, and they can do anything a Windows station can (that a school would need, anyways)

Nope. What it won't do is run office.

Macs run office, dude.
They have done for years.
I can't believe that got modded up. (!)

This might explain some things...

[AragornCG]

OK guys... this is coming from someone who has actually signed a Microsoft School Agreement, so I sort of know what I'm talking about here.

You might find it helpful to open this page while reading this message, as it gives you a very clear overview of the different licensing options MS has.

This is School Agreement 3.0 that the article is referring to. Way before SA 3.0, there was SA 1.0. The 1.0 agreement was designed to give schools a fixed-price-per-year subscription for everything they could possibly want software-wise. There are plenty of other academic licensing options available.. this one was incredibly cheap (roughly $50 per seat per year max, decreases dramatically in volume) and makes sure you've got everything covered. Education is a unique market to sell software (assuming they are going to purchase software and not use open source) because money comes through an annual budgeting process. If a school can say that they have (x) computers and each one costs (x) in each budget cycle to keep in software, that's something that can be planned for. Buying software (er, anything) when needed is darn near impossible in many schools. The other advantage is that when a new machine is purchased, Microsoft includes it on the license until the next yearly cycle. Therefore, if you have 100 machines, you can buy 500 more without any software and be immediately licensed without any charge until the next year, when you pay Microsoft for 600 seats. Because of the free-software-for-new-boxen clause (which is VERY helpful... software acquisiton budgets and hardware acquisition budgets often do not coincide) Microsoft requires that every box in the school be included. This is only one of many options!

The reason Macs were included was dualfold - the agreement covers BackOffice Client Access Licenses, for one - for consistency, Microsoft doesn't want you dealing with having some computers covered for BackOffice and others not, thereby allowing you to 'fudge' on your servers - and the inclusion of various Mac-based software (office:mac, etc.)

Would this be a bad license if it was intended for everyone or the only option? Yes. Did it save my school in budget crunches becasue current software we needed (While open source is nice, let's be honest - it's neither designed for nor up to the usability needed for an educational deployment) could be billed as a required expense instead of an optional upgrade was available? Yes.

Now the confusion came up when Microsoft redid the license as School Agreement 3.0. Now, instead of receiving a package (which included Windows, Visual Studio, Office, BackOffice CAL, etc.), institutions can pick and choose products. The old option is still available for roughly the same price as a "desktop/client bundle" plus a few upgrades (Visual Studio is $2 a seat, for instance). There are a few minor differences which are detailed on the Microsoft licensing website... and a few changes for the better, like allowing schools to buy Microsoft software and simply give it to their students. (This is a great development for Visual Studio, for instance... Pay $2 per student in a CS course and they get development tools. Is it a GNU tool? Nope, but it does create young coders who will discover open source later.)

Because the basic premise of the agreement is the same, and options can be added and subtracted, they apparently didn't change the counting restrictions since 1.0. The difference now is that because you can order only certain products, people who don't fully buy into the plan and *only* purchase PC products wind up buying more licenses than they otherwise should. If this happens, school agreement should be avoided at all costs. IMHO you should only buy into this arrangement if you as a school want a large percentages of the stuff; simply licensing Windows is not productive here.

To be fair to Microsoft, pricing on these licenses takes into account the fact that the software will probably not be used on every box. Think about it... a single license for Visual Studio.NET Pro Academic runs $99, while the per seat cost here is $2. They're obviously recognizing that secretaries and many teachers' desk machines won't be running Visual Studio. In the case of Windows, the license cost is $18. That is far less than a volume license of an NT-based professional OS has ever cost in 100-300 unit quantities - so the acknoweldgement is made that not every machine will be running Windows that is counted. (If it does, then you get an even better deal. That's why this only makes sense for some schools.) This "subpricing" strategy is not something I made up - they do detail it on their licensing site.

If interested, these are the prices:

• Office Standard, Pro and Macintosh Editions $24.00
  
• Windows Desktop Operating System Upgrades $18.00
  
• Core Client Access Licenses (CALs) $15.00
  
• SQL ServerTM CALs $5.00
  
• Visio® Professional Edition $5.00
  
• FrontPage $5.00
  
• Visual Studio $2.00
  
• Project $5.00
  
• Publisher $2.00
  
• Encarta Class Server CALs $5.00
  
• Encarta® Reference Suite and Online Deluxe $5.00
  
• Magic School Bus $2.00
  
• Windows 2000 Professional Step by Step Interactive by Microsoft Press $2.00
  
• Web Publishing Step by Step Interactive by Microsoft Press $2.00

Please mod this message up - the discussions so far haven't been acknowledging what the license is really about. For a task that is already very difficult (especially for those of us who'd rather not buy the stuff to begin wtih), School Agreement makes school IT admins who are forced to work wtih MS products' jobs much easier and (when signed properly) can save money.

Ben