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Microsoft Customers Get No Bang for Buck
sammy baby writes "Software missing its ship date is commonplace enough that it's usually only mentioned for yuks. However, subscribers to Microsoft's Software Assurance program are discovering that it can have some very real repercussions. According to NetworkWorld, many licencees are discovering that due to slipping release dates, many thousands of dollars spent on these contracts have brought them zero return."
At what point did these customers forget they are dealing with a software company? Missed dates, slippage, heck, I work as a programmer and there's often good reasons (You can have it now unfinished, untested or with bugs OR you can wait for it to be finished, passed Q/A and tested), granted there are numerous examples of Microsoft using the customer for testing after rollout ("Oh, that bug will be fixed in the next service pack"), but again I don't think they're unique. They're just singled out because Microsoft is a favorite whipping boy. Imagine the losses that may be incurred by (more) flawed code being released on schedule.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Finally there are real, measurable monetary losses that customers can sue for.
When does an announced or heavily marked release date become "contract like", for example, "Longhorn will be released 1/3/2009" as opposed to using something like "when it is done".
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
... remember it's not only MS who produce vapourware. Pre-orders for, say, Duke Nukem Forever have gone the same way - although I dare say most retailers offering a pre-order will have issued refunds.
Sadly, in business, slippage does occur and contracts do expire. It's not preferred, but it occurs more than most people would like.
The long and short is, IMHO this is only noteworthy at this time because of the sheer scale in terms of both cash value and number of "victims".
"It is dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue." -- Zork
just don't pay for any as-yet-unreleased products...
On the other hand, there's one born every minute. Usually that's plenty.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
Microsoft screwing their customers? How is this news?
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
"Microsoft and every other major vendor do not guarantee software upgrades as part of their maintenance contracts. But users view upgrades as the meat of their contracts. "
In short, you're SOL if you bought one.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
I'm pretty sure this exact thing is why almost everyone was against the new licensing when it was announced.
Can't come as a suprise.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
These contracts guaranteed no upgrades, just that if there was an upgrade in that time frame usually 2 years that you would be entitled to recieve the upgrade. There was no benefit, and we rarely sold them unless we knew that say for instance office xp was due to be released in like 3-6 months.
Microsoft customers just got banged.
A lot of Microsoft revenue has always come from very sketchy licensing policies. I don't see why this new twist should surprise anybody. It's just more typical behavior from monopoly.
let this thing linger for a few days/weeks, let more and more people vent their (righteous) anger at the utter waste of money that the licensing has proved to be and then, magnanimously, they will offer a renewal option for three years for the price of two with a guaranteed major release or a refund of half the price (or something like that). And all the while, they'll paint themselves as being responsive as opposed to the reality of them being abusive (in the monopolistic sense)
I am one of those IT managers that had a real problem with Microsoft's Licensing 6.0. By essentially forcing IT managers into pre-paying for upgrades every three years that they may or may not use and removing any possibility of customer loyalty upgrades, Microsoft went from fair preservation of their revenue flow to outright extortion.
Essentially you are being asked to pay a substantial amount of your IT budget for an upgrade sight unseen. Usually before you bring a product into your company you evaluate it for technical soundness and applicability to user needs and business requirements.
Microsoft seems to assume that their upgrades will always meet these requirements.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Every software developer knows that big releases to production systems is a bad idea. I would much rather have small incremental releases. That way when a release causes a problem only a small area has to be examined.
Maybe it's different with Microsoft software.
However I expect people like getting there shrink wrapped dvd new version rather than applying a small downloaded patch.
----
All of the software companies have similar problems. The big difference is that Microsoft virtually forces you to buy into their program if your company is large at all.
Because of their monopoly, you have to upgrade eventually. If you don't buy into SA, the individual upgrades later will cost you much, much more. So you end up having to gamble and pick between the two choices.
My small-business MSDN liscense keys include an unlimited use key for the 64-bit version of windows XP, yet the CD is nowhere to be found in the sets, nor is it available anywhere that I can find on the MSDN website. Anyone have this problem before? or maybe the solution that i'm clearly overlooking?
..that e.g. SuSE (with their Enterprise Software) offers something similar:
;-)
during the time you have a maintenance contract
- which is required to actually download
patches - you can also upgrade to a newer
version of the product, if it is available.
So you actually pay for the maintenance and get
upgrades "free".
Microsoft should do the same, then people would stop whining. At least for the above reason
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
Poor MS, now that this scam has run it's course they have to come up with a totally new and innovative way to fuck their customers.
I feel for them, I really do.
I am unfortantly responcible for our Microsoft CRM system, which was released a little over a year ago. So waiting for version 1.2 to come was frustrating, and having them push back the release date didn't help. It was finally made official that it would be released in the beginning of December. Dandy.
So being a good IT slave, I plan the upgrade ritual around my schedule and priorities.
Long story short, it didn't arrive until mid January. Needless to say I constantly received inquires about when the system would be upgraded, as parts of the system were not working right and MS was still working with me to fix it and they felt that the upgrade would be the solution....
*sigh*
> Microsoft Customers Get No Bang for Buck
If you're trying to get them on the cheap you're gonna get caught out. Try Staceys down the road if you want affordable and quality, get a hell of a good bang for your buck, and some more (if you pay)
It's impossible to tell in advance what these contracts are going to be worth. In short, these people paid for any updates to Windows in 2004 or 2005 on the assumption that there would be one. Microsoft never promised one, but they hinted that Longhorn should be ready by then, and it's been Microsoft's habit to release a new OS every two or three years.
Well, sorry, no new release. Nobody promised one, they just assumed like fools that there'd be one. Ton of money wasted. Oops.
Thing is, how can Microsoft ever sell these subscriptions again to companies that paid and got nothing?
If BYTE Magazine had adopted this "Give us money for a subscription, and we'll send you and issue whenever we manage to get one out!" business model, they would probably still be in business!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
With selling software for zero amounts of pounds to education and the various things like the eu sueing and now this... How much money could microsoft afford to lose?
The way this is looking they would not stand to last more then 5 or so years.
___
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire
Just to show that this couldn't possibly come as a surprise for whoever PHB'es penned these agreements:
..and..
So it's not "news" that this scheme would cost you a whole lot with the possibility (and high probability) of giving almost nothing in return.
If anyone who signing up for Licensing 6.0 actually believed that Microsoft would let them get the next great thing "for free", then I've got one nice bridge to sel^H^H^Hlease them.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
The CIO of a company should know better than to get a maintenance contract just so he can upgrade based on a roadmap that may or may not materialize. If you want the maintenance only so you can upgrade, wait until the upgrade is out and THEN sign a maintenance contract.
The CIO needs to make it clear in summary to the CEO and CFO that these are the expected benefits, these are the assumptions I'm making and these are the risks. In my opinion he didn't do his job and now he's blaming Microsoft for failing to pedict the future, and he's making a fool of himself in the process.
If you're going to blame Microsoft, blame them for something they've done wrong. Don't try to penalize them for telling you what their plans are (a good practice in my opinion), or for your own stupidity. It makes you look like a whinning twit when you do have a legitimate complaint.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Y.A. arguement to drag into the Mac vs Microsoft TCO"discussion"....
I like microcars
many thousands of dollars spent on these contracts have brought them zero return.
Why, just in the last few months they got Blaster and Bagel and MyDoom and Skynet and...
John Conner: Boss, our customers realize they have been ripped off.
Bill Gate: We've seen this problem before. We'll just release Service Pack 5 as a new OS. It's new if we say it is. Have Marketing design a new splash screen. That will fool all those bumpkins.
John Conner: <snicker> You're right again Bill!
Bill Gate: Yes I am, because I am smarter than everyone else.
John Conner: Then do you think you could help me out? My mother, Sarah, is being chased by a cybernetic killing machine sent from the future...
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
So, in short, no ownership, no migration path (except if Microsoft feels like it), no lease write offs, and you get to pay rent.
Do landlords generally improve an apartment after you move in? Not usually. They figure, you're in so why bother. These companies better get used to the leaky toilet.
At least if you're renting you only have to move apartments. The first time a company wants to discontinue "software assurance" they're going to realize that moving to a new apartment is a whole lot easier than moving every single pc and server to a different OS or to finance purchasing of all software everywhere in the company.
In short it's a choice that only an MBA could love. (Want to put your company out of business? Create an expense where none existed before!)
The baby's fine -- please stop sending business cards.
The chart lists $1.8 billion in 2003, $1.1 billion for 2004 and $0 for 2005. Why even list 2005? It hasn't happened yet. All this chart does by having 2005 on there is mislead people into thinking that 2005 was fruitless. What a base way to "support" what you say in your article. When I got to that part, I dismissed the article even though I agreee that MS is in for trouble with the upgrade dilema. Bad journalism strikes again.
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
"Hey, boss, Microsoft gave you nothing for something. Now check out this OOo stuff, where you get something for nothing."
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
...after all, I just upgraded with this service and my system will now support HDD sizes up to a whopping 800MB and modems that run at speeds of up to 14.4Kbps. What's there to complain about?
Sorry, I thought this was Fark for a second.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Contracts are what you use against your customers.
Duh.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
However, subscribers to Microsoft's Software Assurance program are discovering that it can have some very real repercussions. According to NetworkWorld, many licencees are discovering that due to slipping release dates, many thousands of dollars spent on these contracts have brought them zero return.
That's exactly what I thought when I saw the story about XP Reloaded. Even wrote a little tidbit on my website about it. This is why I think they're doing an XP Reloaded release. I guess it's going to be too little too late?
AirSpeak - http://itunes.com/apps/AirSpeak
Companies are not aware of thier SA bennies - like spread payments - training - home useage and purchase program, new version rights, support, etc...
Ignorance of bennies does not mean that the SA program is bad.
I reccommend companies using every single benefit therefore getting all the bang for their bucks.
SA is a good program - and there is such a thing as negotiations as well.
trust me, MS wants their customers happy
A Windows Enterprice Licensing Scheme Contract or a SCO Linux License Contract?
Beep beep.
Personally, in most cases, I'd rather have the buggy product now, and get a patch for it in a few months or so to fix some of the bugs. Buggy software is better than no software at all.
Every time you post an article on Slashdot, I kill a server. Think of the servers!
I happened to be in charge of IT for two different small companies near the Software Assurance deadline, and made the recommendation to decline the move to SA.
In both cases, it just did not look worthwhile... I didn't think the Microsoft product cycle was likely to be fast enough to warrant the subscription. (Plus I was annoyed with the enforced change, as were many other folks in the industry... but that wasn't sufficient basis for the decision, alas.)
But it was a pretty high stakes game. Guessing wrong would cost thouands of dollars in the long run for each company. It's quite a relief to see that I guessed correctly... so far.
Amusingly, Microsoft has now managed to give pretty much all of its business customers cause to be annoyed with them. The first group was annoyed by the enforced choice between the loss of upgrade value and the expense of Software Assurance. The second group, that chose SA, should be getting pissed off right about... [checks watch]... now.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
I wonder how many ISP's are losing money from all of these viruses.
customer: I just got this virus that says my account has been terminated!
bofhell: That's right and that suspended account you received email with just NOW... did not send you that message!
# userdel customer
MoFscker
I think the ultimate product for stupid people will be pre-paid health insurance (coming soon to an HR department near you I'm sure).
Once you've paid for such a plan, it's in the provider's interest for you to die as quickly and efficiently as possible so that they get your money but don't have to provide any services in return.
The Microsoft pre-paid license program is just one step below this.
On the other hand, the typical business customer might actually like a way to pay for *not* having software updates, since constantly having to upgrade to the latest version is a pain in the neck, along with having to deal with the feature bloat that is required to otherwise motivate people to upgrade.
This is the business that RedHat has gotten into where in exchange for money they guarantee that the software you're running today will remain supported for a much longer period and you won't be forced to upgrade before you want to, and it's clearly the direction Microsoft is tring to move as they start running out of compelling feature-based reasons to upgrade from verison N to N+1.
So if you don't want things to change, by all means pay in advance, but if you're looking forward to new features, wait until the product actually ships before handing over your money.
G.
MSDN Subscription: $2,000
Windows XP License Agreement x 200: $12,000
Office License Agreement x 200: $20,000
Being Bill Gates and laughing all the way to the bank for having to provide nothing extra: Priceless
For all your price gouging and junk software there's Microsoft. For everything else, there's Open Source.
apt-get upgrade
too bad these people are using:
apt-cache search upgrade plans that cost money and are full of nonsense
I also reply below your current threshold.
This of course causes all of the people who fell off of maintenance to have to buy the new version at full retail price, rather than as an upgrade.
More money for microsofts pocket.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
In the interests of political correctness, the Microsoft's lawyers insisted on using the phrase "anal induced shafting."
Contract law- it can be a bloody/shitty business.
"... what more do SA subscribers expect for $30k a year, Longhorn?"
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
Our Company recently purchased Software assurance for Small business server for ungrades to SBS 2003. first we get a email saying go the website and activate the license. So off we dutifully go and full in the webform and get a authorisation number and a peice of paper saying that you can use SBS2003. We wait.... no disks to install from arrive, no links or files for download even (and this is 5CD worths). Chasing our supplier about disks it takes him 3 weeks to find the media and $50 extra charge. Finally done! Wait no? Last week while filing that and other stuff away notice that the CD's came without any product keys. So we're back to our supplier who is trying to find out whats going on. The cost to me has been minimal since I have no plans to upgrade the server till the end of the year, but my suppliers swearing is impressive as this is costing him a lot of time...
From two years (2000 through 2001) Microsoft provided essentially nothing in the way of new programming tools (or heaven forbid, bug fixes) to it's $2,000/seat MSDN customers. .NET so their net profit remained $1800/year.
.NET. (To be fair, it comes with a free copy of Office 2003.)
After two years of 90% profit margins ($200 worth of duplicate DVD/CDs + shipping), in 2002, they raised the price by about $1000 for 2002's
So, except for the few MSDN customers who were smart/quick enough to figure out what Microsoft was up to, they ended up paying $7000 + $2500/yr for
Apparently EBGames has been allowing preorders for DNF for years now...
EBGames/GameSpot Link
Small problem. There is a huge difference between publishing a roadmap/timeline and keeping it. Software is sadly a hugely complex product. Worse it is horribly interconnected meaning that it takes forever to properly test and you can bet the moment it is out someone comes accross a situation you never though off.
But this is well known. So nobody in their right mind counts on a software product being released on time or in a promised form. Like the real world you only trust what is actually right there in front of you.
Would you buy a car that during the testdrive fails the brake test but they promise they fix it in yours? Of course not. So why do you buy software that you tested as broken but they will fix it in a patch they are going to make?
This is even worse. This is like buying a car on the promise that if they come out with a better model in 3 years they will give you that one.
No the people who signed up for this are MS junkies of the worst kind. They will signup again cause it is easier then thinking. Worse if they don't signup again they will have to admit they weren't thinking the first time. Signup again and all they gotta do is gloss over the fact that nothing was received in return. That is easy.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I don't know the numbers but I do work for my state insurance fund and transportation department and every state agency here buys these licenses....
And in the end who really pays for it? We do....
How much longer are we really going to stand for this?
Or could it be I'm still pissed about moving into a state that has income tax......
I wish this caused people to stop paying MS for upgrades ahead of time. So that upgrades would not be a given for a percentage of the user base. So that the remaining percentage of the user base did not feel compelled to upgrade as well, in order to keep file_features compatibility with upgraded base. So that people might have a chance to look at what new comes out and ask themselves: is this even worth upgrading ?
Then maybe increasingly bloated software does not keep us upgrading and throwing away computers so much. Then OS developers will have a fixed target to catch up. Then MS will no longer be this "bigger-than-life" company. Then developers may dream of contributing to the world, instead of only to a profit making machine's bottomline.
Patents expire. Good things reach the Public Domain. Combustion engines and electric lamps, penicilin and frozen dinners get produced by lots of companies. Why should companies such as MS, Oracle, Siebel, etc. expect to have a perpetual hold of a specific market through an infinite number of releases ? Why should any institution other than governments charge taxes ?
Quem a paca cara compra, paca cara pagará.
"A $368 Office license would carry nearly a $107 fee for Software Assurance. "
Thats less than $10 per month.
Considering the number of stupid websites that are aching to charge $5 per month subscriptions, $10 a month regular for real software doesn't seem so bad.
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
It appears to me that Windows/Office/etc. are finally becoming "good enough" and people/companies are not seeing the need to upgrade anymore. (I know.. both windows and office are still buggy and closed source, but for most desktop users they are good enough... finally). What does this do to Microsoft's business model of "force your customers to upgrade every x number of years"? I imagine that is why Bill G. wants the world to go to subscription based software (i.e. rent Office per month).
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - The Celtic - =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
How about quantifying the amount of software that's purchased but never implemented?
I think that many of us have seen numerous times when software was purchased because the department/project had a "use it or lose it" budget mechanism. I.E. if you don't spend 100% of your budget, then you're budget shrinks next year.
The best part is when they renew the licenses next year. D'uh!
Microsoft wants a fixed revenue-stream for the minimum of possible work.
The customers want the exact opposite.
Of course, unlike every other business, in the Windows business, Microsoft is always right.
Maybe somebody should go and tell those poor MS-customers that.
No gosh for your dosh or kudos for your pecos either by the sounds of it ;-)
When you buy in to these plans, you're buying insurance to receive upgrades for free or at subdued charges. You're not buying anything tangible.
It's like buying an insurance policy. You pay the money but never realize the benefit. But because everybody buys insurance, you do as well. The loopholes coded in to their logic ensures that you are able to benefit in the most minimal way possible.
Sell your soul. It's cheaper.
You are a CTO. You advised to buy the software assurance plan at first.
Now you have two choices. Recommended renewal and possible have to explain if your ceo is even aware that no the old subscription was perhaps not full value. (can easily be argued that instead you paid for the patches, god knows there been enougn for them. Also easy to show figures it is actually cheaper, MS salesrep can give you those).
OR you tell that you were wrong before and are responsible for wasting shitloads of money in a down economy for absolutly no return whatsoever.
Mmmm. Though choice ain't it? MS doesn't have to sell anything. All the people who bought it will sell it for them or be fired.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Will they follow with XP Revolutions? Will either be as well-received as the original?
Microsoft C*O of your choice: "Hey, those Matrix movies were cool! Everybody liked all of those! Let's use that for a naming scheme!"
Bwahahahahahaha! (*sniff*)
I kill myself.
Pretty simple really. Create a virus that creates a repetitive red strobe flash on the screen. The better the virus, the more people you reach. The more people you reach, the better chance you put some people into seizures, and kill a few in the process.
I know it's a horrible thing to say, but a good virus built like this could easily kill more people than Ted Bundy or the Green River Killer. All you need is a hacker without a conscience, or who want's to get in the history books.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
If Microsoft did this intentionally, it is fraud, even if it is legal fraud.
Not everyone read those articles.
No one who has posted here seems to realize how this Microsoft policy was designed. Some very smart Microsoft people sat down and spent months deciding the best way to sell Linux. They deserve praise for their success.
Not true.
Basically, your initial purchase has to add up to so many points in order to enter Open Licensing. The more points you have on the initial purchase, the better the price you get through the open licensing program for that initial purchase and future purchases. Some products have more points than others. With open licening, you're only purchasing a license. You order media, manuals, and tech support as needed. Because this stuff isn't included and because you're buying in bulk, it costs a considerable amount less than retail. You need a few hundred licenses, but just one copy of the media to toss on the file server for distribution. You run your own help desk and anything in the manual can be found online. Anyway, when you purchase a license, you get the option to buy it with Software Assurance. Software assurance lasts two years and gives you access to upgrades. At the end of the two years, you're given the chance to renew the software assurance for another two years. Of course, you're not paying as much for the renewal as you did for the initial purchase because you already own the license.
Another common point of confusion is OEM copies of Microsoft software. Basically, OEM copies can only be sold with an assembled computer or a core component (Motherboard, CPU, case, power supply, etc.). Also, they're permanently stuck to the computer. You can't build yourself a system later and move the license. Technical support is not included with OEM copies.
I hope that clears things up!
-Lucas
Digital's OS-8 software for the PDP-8 was sold by... if I recall correctly the term was "software maintenance contract." For something like $500/year you got "every" release, which had always been annual... until the year when there was no release. There were some fairly harsh questions at DECUS that year.
Of course, it wasn't as bad as the Y1978 bug. OS-8 stored the date in a single 12-bit word, with three bits for the year... epoch 1970. By 1975 or 1976 people were starting to get a little nervous. The PDP-11 was hot by then and the DEC line was that nobody would be using OS-8 by the time the date field ran out. In fact, the product manager said to a roomful of DECUS attendees that he would "personally" fix the date if OS-8 was still in use in 1978. Of course... it was. And, of course... the manager had moved on to other things at Digital and wasn't around to be held accountable. The date field actually did run out. Digital fixed it by shoehorning in a two-bit extension. But the fix was late, sometime after mid-1979 if I recall recorrectly.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
The chart is for the old licensing scheme "Upgrade Advantage", not the current "Software Assurance" scheme. Thus, since UA has been discontinued there can be no revenue from it in 2005. What revenue they got from SA should be a different chart.
BalamPoor Buck...
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Isn't that ironic that we can't finger Microsoft, while said Microsoft has been raping us for years?
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Let me get this straight:
People gave up perfectly good static licenses for MS products and switched to a annual subscription fee to keep their licenses renewed regardless of whether a new update arrives or not, just so that they can save some cash per license?
*ponder*
Why a reasonably intelligent person running a profitable business would choose to give up control of when they upgrade and how much they pay for it is just beyond me.
Judging from the page's estimates for 2003 and 2004, there appear to be ALOT of people and businesses who seem to think it is a good idea.
Look, for the past DECADE, MS has routinely slipped on delivering their software. Remember Windows 95? Came out quite a bit later than expected. Same for 98.
Look, if you HAVE to use MS products, at least use them wisely. Your department has the money to outright buy a license for use. That means you get to keep using what you bought... as opposed to this ridiculous "subscription" service which exchanges your working license into a crippled license that expires. For what? So you can give MS your money with absolutely no expectations from them, right?
I hope people recorded and/or documented their conversations with the MS reps.
Seriously, what does using a MS product give you? Why do people persist in using the MS OS when it is constantly being targetted by worms and virii? When the OS itself goes through so many internal changes that no one knows for sure if it is safe to use?
Understandably, it looked good on the balance sheets. But I think it is high time that the people looking at the balance sheets beef up on technology. Have the CFO spend some time with the CTO and maybe some other Tech people who KNOW the software and the history. THEN make your informed decision.
Think about it: The time it takes people who use an MS infra-structure to port what they have over to the new MS infra-structure... couldn't that have been used to port it to say... a Unix based one? Really, it can be done. Better uptimes, few if any worms or virii... and depending on what version of the OS you choose, free upgrades and quality support from the online community.
Hell, if you MUST run some critical app on windows, why not run it inside of a virtual machine? Time to upgrade hardware? Just install the Unix os and then copy over the virtual machine image. Bam... hardware upgraded with only a few minutes of downtime. License keys are happy, software runs in the "same" environment, just faster.
Business really need to start thinking in terms of what the problem REALLY is as opposed to what their vendor tells them the problem is. Especialyl if that vendor has a nice pricey solution for you.
A business investment should not be a shell game where the vendor goes: oh, sorry! you didn't get anything this year, why not pay your fees and try again next year?
That's shows a simple lack of understanding of one's own company's relationship with the vendor. They are a freaking VENDOR. But companies treat MS like it was the parent company or something.
*sigh*
Okay, enough ranting from me. I mean, it's not my money that got sucked up for no good reason.
Btw, visited the forbes ROI calculator for the Software Assurance thing. $18,000 for three computers? These are supposed to be workstations, btw. If that is the case, whatever company paying that much for workstations alone is already getting shafted before MS ever got to them.
Anyways, hadn't posted in a while, so getting this out of my system.
As for the companies... they really need to look at what it is that they REALLY REALLY need. Make a firm decision and go with it. If they hang onto the SA with MS because they are afraid, then they might as well just hand over the money now and forever. If they decide this was a bad idea and a mistake, then they should have the guts to admit they screwed up and figure out which technology path is right.
It isn't rocket science. It's business.
I find it both annoying and terrifying that people who have been to business school fall so easily for what is essentially a pie in the sky subscription system. It's like someone telling you they might not mess with you tomorrow if you pay them now. But they're there tomorrow anyways...
Winged Power Photography
Just a bump in the road on the way to "pay for service packs".
Don't worry, it won't be patented -- I guess Apple's got prior art on that one.
They are. I think they're just pissed that they aren't at least getting a reacharound out of the deal though. At very least MS could buy them dinner first.
This has been a problem for years with their stupid MOLP agreements.
Not only do you not get your upgrades in a timely enough manner that gives you value for your 'lease', but you also are FORCED to upgrade when they do..
If your hardware isnt ready, or dont feel that you need the new features, too bad... you gotta buy new machines and upgrade anyway.. ( its fun to explain that one to your CFO )
i always buy retail packages.. sure it costs more upfront, but as a long term investment its cost effective.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Wouldn't want to steal your girl.
We're killing the support contract of our company with IBM, and spending the money on another identical server instead. Shit happens, we swap the new with the broke server, surely much faster than waiting for their next-day service.
Same with Microsoft. We were paying support for copies of Windows 2000 server, when I realized we've never placed one call to Microsoft. Things go wrong, we format and reinstall Windows; much faster than arguing with a MS technician isnt it?
So just purchasing duplicated hardware and software gets the job done better and cheaper in most cases, except say for ERP systems in which case a bug will have to be fixed and the system cant be just reinstalled for a fix.
I know support contracts are different from software subscription licenses but thought I'd mention it here for brevity. Now on that topic, I wouldnt quite understand why anyone would need subscription licenses from Microsoft anyway. Its 2004 and we still insist on running Windows2000SP4 instead of XP or 2003. We'll wait till 2005 and SP3 before considering 2003. IT departments crave stability in their servers, so going cutting edge with Micrsoft is like shooting yourself in the foot. I wouldnt even go cutting edge on Redhat if the server hosts important stuff.
So ladies and gentlemen of IT, please stop the frenzy of latest, more, bigger, faster, cutting-edge and focus more on better, smarter. We're all in the business of making money.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
The PHBs will likely buy these services as a way of covering /dev/ass: "Well you can't blame me. I used their trusted computing and their assurance programs. I did everything I could to ensure ...."
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I grant that you don't get many applications that offer unlimited upgrades, but WinZip is one of them.
I've used it for many years now, and just recently updated to the most recent version to fix a security flaw in the old one.
BANG! There goes your files...
BANG! Blaster is here...
BANG!
There you have it...
how long until
a fool and his money are soon parted.
You knew something was wrong with this program when quotes from Laura DiDio started popping up. She seems to provide her "insight" for the truly desperate. Indeed, before this praise, it seemed like she was playing good cop/bad cop with them to get more sales for licenses. Judging from this article, I guess it worked.
...small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri...
That the software hasn't not arrived yet. It could be years before the software finally doesn't arrive.
paintball
nt...
Do you have any comments about Microsoft's CRM software? My company is planning on moving to it eventually. Most likely, anyway. I've searched, but I didn't really find any opinions, mostly just sales & PR info.
7d9e63e9501751ff4bf9307989d5623d *SheepHead
This is precisely why I advised our COO that we not buy any subscription program when we upgraded to WinXP and Windows Server 2003. Microsoft allowed nearly three years to elapse between Win2k and XP/2K3, and the two year interval for subscription pricing just seemed too short. I gambled that Microsoft wouldn't make a major release in the next two years, and it appears it was a good gamble.
I had a long talk with one of the enterprise account reps at CDW, and I asked him just how many of his customers had actually bought into subscription. "Less than 15%," he said. Seems I wasn't the only one with this idea. When (if) we do upgrade to Microsoft's latest and greatest, we'll have to pay full price, but that should be less than the cost of two subscription terms. I'm also betting that Linux pricing pressure will force Microsoft's next product offering to be substantially cheaper than their current lineup.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
My company bought 75k in SA licenses for Application Center 2000. We contacted our MS rep and after 2 weeks we got it *all* back.
Kudos to MS for stepping up and doing the right thing. In fact the check we got from them said the $$$ came from the "Make It Right Fund".
Before you bitch about not getting the software you paid for, ask for your $$$ back. From what our rep said, MS is doing the right thing all over the place to keep people happy - contact your rep today.
Don't be too quick to judge...
I'm not really in the software support realm, I support network equipment. So I'm trying to compare this to Cisco SmartNet(tm) and it makes me ask this question:
If I have support for a device (let's say it's 7x24xhr onsite replacement, which isn't real cheap) and the device does NOT fail then have I paid something for nothing? I've still had access to the TAC all this time and all the other things that come with support.
Now I know software doesn't physically break in such a way that you need a new identical replacement from the vendor, but to me this seems similar. It was possible that Microsoft was going to come out with an upgrade during this time, so you buy the contract. You also get (according to the article) access to support services.
On the one hand I know that most folks bought this for upgrade protection, but on the other hand it seems to me that support is insurance, not a gamble that you'll get something out of it. If I'm wrong please correct me.
"Where quality is like a dead stinking rat - you just can't miss it."
I wonder if there is any correlation between Zero Return on Investment (ZROI), an innovative new marketing strategy by Microsoft, and the undisputed fact (according to Microsoft advertisements) that said ZROI is, in fact, less expensive, in terms of Total Cost of Ownership (er, Licenseship), than sofware from that competing multinational multiconglomerate semi-government quasi-empire organization that makes that GNU:\>Linux thing, or whatever it's called.
On the other hand, there probably isn't any correlation. It's just a coincidence that Microsoft is so incredibly innovative.
My great grandmother, who is definitely not the origin of this passage, used to say "If you dance with the Devil, you are going to get burned."
Well designed software is hugely simple.
Or conversely; Poorly designed software is simply huge!
Microsoft seems to want to move towards the liscensing strategy used for real expensive software like high end CAD tools. These are usually liscensed for a set term and each license lets you run one copy for the term of the license, whatever version you want on as many machines as you want (one running per license at any time butthe machine is irrelevent).
This is not your everyday "pedestrian" software like windows and office though. In my case, I'm using place and route tools for chip layout work. If there's a bug in the software that causes us problems, it can cost us serious money. Consequently, these types of licenses include a lot of support. You submit a bug and they put a couple engineers on it immediately and have patch to you in a little as a few days.
I can't speak to how MS treats its large customers, but I doubt they get that kind of response to problems.
If it's not on fire, it's a software problem.
we did it for our exchange, windows servers and cals. I correctly bet on windows and exchange 2003 coming out in the cycle. office and client os licenses would have cost us a ton. sure enough, we are currently refreshing our desktops, and just buying em with xp oem licenses. we will stick with office 2k, go with outlook 2k3 for its anti spam/ and anti html mail features.
the big question is to renew the SA on the exchange and server stuff. probably not, with longhorn so so far away
So let me get this straight. It is actually supposed to be newsworthy that Microsoft screws people out of their money? That is how Microsoft gets rich anyway.
rm -rf sig
that is an absurd claim. they got office 2003 AND dont have to pay anymore than $50 per year for it. that's a DAMn good deal.
The title should read,
"Billy, Wifey, and BratBitch, Get Bucks
from Customers to Supply Crack Habits."
Billy was over heard to say, "I'm wait'n
for our customers to buy the raffle tickets
to such me off, the night that LongHorne
ships. Ha Ha Ha."
Billy, realy, you're such a cad.
Toodles
That's a great point. Consider this: what if Newsweek sent you one issue for a year's subscription? There would be a lawsuit, at minimum. They'd go out of business immediately. Why should it be different for this industry?
DUUUUHHHH...I had half a dozen IT people ask me if they should buy into the new MS license scheme two years ago. After evaluating just what they had, to each an every one I said NO. These people are laughing about it now and have learned to not take MS too seriously when they "threaten" with new license schemes. The track record of this company is clear and it is, and always has been readily apparent that you will lose money in the long run with their license schemes. Now that new product turn out has spread to 4+ years, buying brand new, if you even need to, is going to be a better investment when compared to the yearly MS license.
If you didnt see this coming you are exactly the sort of person P.T. Barnum says is born every minute.
Microsoft's move here was very valuable. Imagine all the bugs and broken software avoided simply by not releasing any software. Fantastic! No problems from upgrading! When was the last time you did a MS upgrade and had ZERO problems?!
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Well, if you're going to trust Microsoft, you should expect to lose out. It's one of the hard lessons in life.
Three-year contracts? Who is supposed to benefit from this, the end-user or Microsoft? Considering these contracts were brought out at a time where cash was tight you shouldn't really have to think too hard about that.
Since when has Microsoft been concerned about end-users? The only times I've seen this occurrance is when they're about to jump ship.
If you believe Microsoft you'll believe anything. Well, anything except the truth.
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
Microsoft wish this was the case. Unfortunately for them, it's simply not true. Check out how much of their large customer base is still using a version of Office and/or Windows that's at least one generation behind, and for a real kick, check how many places still use Office 97 or NT4. IIRC, major hardware sellers like Dell have shelved plans to stop selling anything but Windows XP on new PCs, after several Big Clients(TM) said they wanted the corporate standard Win2K instead.
<obvious> Um... What individual upgrades? </obvious>
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Some people I know who hate learning curves (and I'm one of them) will run the same piece of software for years and years.
They beat it to pieces and wring every last penny of value out of the thing because it doesn't wear out for them. The more they use it, the lower their per-use cost becomes. Small businesses are running everyday applications on DOS.
If your software is "good enough" and can be run forever, then why would you spend good money to buy something different? Is it really necessary and going to provide increased ROI?
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Software Assurance is a multi-year term. If you are under SA, you get all releases during your term for the price of media kits.
If you do not keep your product under SA, and you want to upgrade, you purchase new product. For corporate licensing customers, there are no longer such things as upgrades, only SA.
We evaluated SA with regard to our upgrade schedule, which is roughly annual, and Microsoft's, which is 18-24 months for Office and longer for Windows. We found that IF we were going to continue to support a Microsoft environment, AND we were going to upgrade versions more frequently than once every five years, it was more economical to stay under SA for the duration.
This made sense in our environment. Given their license and SA structure, it's not so much a matter of whether an upgrade is released during your SA term, but whether an upgrade is released before SA and renewals exceed the cost of new licenses. You can skip SA and buy new licenses every time you want to upgrade, or you can pay SA and get the upgrades (almost free) when they come along.
Let's not oversimplify the equation. If you pay SA and they don't release an update, you have at least purchased the option or renewing SA. If they release an update during the renewal, you're still further ahead than if you had skipped SA and had to buy new licenses.
BTW, in the agreement, they explicitly promise you nothing.
http://drteknikal.blogspot.com/
Not that I expect anyone to actually heed this, but Mono would be the best bet for a "scripting" language for OpenOffice. It would provide the maximum amount of compatibility with scripts.
This smells very much like M$ is getting into the Vapor Ware trade. Perhaps if MS spent less on laywers, changed their Borg business model, and hired more coders paid the ones they do have more. Then software would be released on time, and with fewer bugs. What really gets me is the number of people who flock to new Windows products when they are released. I know of a half dozen people who ran out and bought XP days after it hit shelves. Just for the sake of "it's the best OS yet". All that money to be a beta-tester. What a waste.
All your Anti-trust is/are belong to Micro$oft
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
My business plan is to tell everyone to pay for a product that may or may not exist by the end of the year and if the product doesn't exist by then, the money is forfeit. The features of the product are yet to be determined. BTW, I have not begun any research and development for my product. Who's with me?
In slashdot terms, I just reduce the business plan into 2 steps without (???):
1. Get people to pay
2. PROFIT!!
over this? This sounds like a scam regardless of the contract they get people to sign, especially when they leaned on companies to get the contract signed. A class action suit worth billions of dollar should do the trick (crossing my fingers). IMHO, this is bordering on criminal behavior. But of course, IANAL.
Whoever thought that getting people to pay for nothing can work as a business plan? Only Microsoft can pull it off. This is a lesson for CIOs/CTOs out there, but somehow, I truly believe that no one will learn it.
You win our coveted Didn't Get It At All award for an amazing feat of misunderstanding!
A more sensible contract would offer, for example, a minimum number of upgrades as well as a term. So the contract could cover, say, two upgrades minimum or all upgrades for two years (whichever comes last). Without the either/or wording, the supplier could either drag out the deliveries beyond the expiration date of fixed-term contracts, or deliver upgrades in smaller pieces to fulfill a fixed-number contract. The existing support agreement follows the same one-sided theme as the EULA: you pay your money, maybe you get something in return, or maybe you don't. Just don't ask for your money back.