MS Tweaks Ill-Received Licensing Plan

ahooton writes "C|Net is reporting that Microsoft has updated it's Software Assurance licensing program. The company has admitted that it's initial approach angered a large number of customers. No huge difference in pricing or terms -- changes are comprised of bundling some training and support. The one interesting concession is that corporate licensees of Microsoft Office can now use that suite on a home computer as well." What a concession. (Paddo points to this similar article on Australian IT via News.com.au.)

Comments

M$ is being quite clever about this, IMHO

[Bold Marauder]

Between this, and all of the charity software donations that they're making, they're basically changing thier public perception, while maintaining their draconian licensing terms.

I have to give them kudos, even if only for the sake of sheer diabolicalness!

Assurance?

[mao che minh]

There really isn't any beneficial changes here. People's gripes were largely with prices and restrictive measures that were associated with the new scheme, not what kind of "assurances" they were recieving ("assurances" that they thought they were already getting for free with older Microsoft products and that they usually get for free with other venodrs' software products: real support, limited training, and manufacturer accountability).

I still don't understand why Microsoft calls their scheme "Software Assurance". This implies that by being forced into expensive licensing schemes you are entitled to an extra degree of software security and performance.

Security and performance should be qualities that sell your product initially, something to be proud of as a manufacturer, not aspects of a product that you get only after paying annual fees.

Large companies end up paying tons in license fees for a plethora of different software products that fit individual needs. They could instead find a few open source products and pay the salaries of a few programmers to customize them to their needs, or outright integrate them. Lotus Notes for mail, Novell for meta, People Soft for CRM, Windows clients, etc. Instead, you could take one strong open source CRM, expand upon it, integrate web based mail (or even make a quick client), and integrate their features to work flawlessly, all running in an open source browser that is running on Linux terminals (which removes the need for de-centralized administration) - instead of forcing the admins to find ways around making all of these closed products work together in hack jobs, with expensive tools like Zen Works deployed just to install and configure software on expensive Windows workstations - or worse. Oh well - I'm being a square headed open source zealot again. I'll go lay down.

What's really ironic is that I'm using WIndows 98 right now, because I screwed my Linux kernel and don't feel like fixing it. My girl just bought me "Enter the Matrix" for the Game Cube man....been busy.....damn agents.

Re:I lay the blame on the pirates

[gadlaw]

Microsoft will be glad to hear that some of their propaganda/education money has been put to good use. Yes indeed, blame it all on the 'pirates.' Microsoft isn't a greedy company bent on controlling all aspects of your computer/entertainment/multimedia experience- everything bad or stupid they do can be blamed on those 'pirates'

Re:I lay the blame on the pirates

[Blackhalo]

I think you lay the blame on the wrong suspect. The driving business reason for "Licencing 6.0" is to continue to grow revenue or at the very least to create a continuous revenue stream. With the market pretty much saturated in Microsoft's primary revenue generating bussineses (desktop OS and Office apps) they have little room for new revenue growth. Short of moving into new markets, X-Box (loss leader) and the Enterprise (Linix is the ecnomical choice in a down economy), Microsoft must use licencing stragegies to maintain income or the stock price will suffer. Over the years MS has gotten very large, and it is really hard to continue to grow a large company, big slow growth companies have relatively low P/E's and have to do things like pay dividends (a Microsoft first) to woo investors. Problem with MS is that they only have two notably, profitable businesses and they have only one directon to go with those.