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Microsoft Revamps Licensing Plans

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the adapt-or-die-die-die dept.

prostoalex writes "Microsoft is introducing significant changes into its licensing program, faced with competition from Linux, as Reuters article suggests. First, Microsoft starts giving away free server licenses to its Software Assurance Program customers, if the PC is not actually used in production and is not present on the network. Such licensing would be convenient for disaster recoveries, where it's important to replace a failed server as soon as possible without calling Microsoft support or licensing partner. Support lifecycle is also extended to 10 years for a variety of products, including Windows 2000, Windows XP and SQL Server 2000."

26 of 356 comments (clear)

  1. In 10 years? by neuro.slug · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Will people actually be running copies of Windows 2000, XP, etc. in 10 years?

    -- n

    1. Re:In 10 years? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes. Yes they will. I still regularly get systems coming into my repair shop running win95. Hell, I even get the ocational win3.11 system.

    2. Re:In 10 years? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I got a tech support ring that a printer was not responding on Thursday.

      Ancient printer on top of a locked cabinet. Noone around could find a key and aside from the door in the front there was a power and cat5 cable coming out from a hole in the back.

      After about 10 minutes w/ my Gerber ripping the cabinet open I discovered a 486DX running a PC-DOS print server.

      Pushed the reboot button on the front of the case and to my shock it actually booted back up again (old PC HD's have a tedency not to spin back up). Tested it and it printed fine.

      Pushed the cabinet back up to the wall and chuckled to myself. Made a note in our ticket system and called it a day.

      Just a note: There's alot of shit out there running that sometimes the IT department doesn't even know about. I wouldn't doubt if there are a few other of these PCDOS print servers and prolly a few 3.1 machines around.

    3. Re:In 10 years? by fleabag · · Score: 5, Interesting

      In corporate land, they may well be.

      We replaced a horrible mix of Win95 and Win98 with Win2K in 2001. There is still a bit of Win95 around, but it is dying slowly.

      We are looking at Longhorn coming out in 2006 (maybe) or 2007 (probably) or 2008 (possibly). If Longhorn comes out in 2007/8 - we would not even consider upgrading until 2009. If there is no driver to change, then we would push further; Longhorn will mean new PCs, which jacks up the cost again. I could easily see a scenario where we are happily running Win2K in 2010. We might be getting a bit itchy by 2014...!

      99% of our users need email, simple office and a browser. If Win2K does the job (and it pretty much does)...then what is the incentive to drop $20 million on new PCs and a new OS roll-out? And yes, some form of Linux desktop in about 2007 looks pretty attractive to me...

    4. Re:In 10 years? by SpaceLifeForm · · Score: 5, Funny

      Feature race: Mach and Longhorn.

      --
      You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
    5. Re:In 10 years? by hpa · · Score: 5, Interesting

      One of the first "real" adoptions of Linux (like 1993-1994) on a corporate scale was a company that makes elevator controllers. Their motivation was quite simple: they need to be able to serve the elevator controller, in situ, *in 50 years*. They can't trust any company to do it for them, so they stashed away all the source code, all the tools, *AND* several computers on which the tools can be built.

  2. Yay for competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And this is why Linux is good for you, even if you don't care about the actual software and are a Windows-only user.

  3. From MS' point ... by pherris · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Extending XP et al lifecycles make sense. Maybe they think if people are forced to make a choice they'll go to Mac OS X, GNU/Linux or BSD.

    IMO this is a sign that other OSs are legitimate competition. I suspect this was the reason for also extending Win98's lifecycle.

    --
    "And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
  4. No Choice... by KrisHolland · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "Microsoft Revamps Licensing Plans"

    Microsoft had no choice really. It was either extend their tech support, or watch many people turn to Linux when they next upgrade.

    This just delays that, probably until longhorn where the choice between upgrading or Linux is to be made, in about 2 years.

    --
    3dinfo@maficstudios.com
  5. It was time. by totatis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Given the bad acceptance of Microsoft's licencing scheme in the IT, it was time Microsoft did something about it. It's not enough IMHO, but still.
    What I like about current situation is that the appearance of solid competitors (around Linux) and the scrutinity of judiciary entities (namely EU), we might have a real free market again in the OS field. That would be great, no matter who the winner is. Free market is always better than a vorace monopoly, and I'd like to see real progress in the field, which can only occur in a competitive market.
    I think the next few years will be very interesting, indeed. Imagine if we had as much offering in the OS field as in say the gaming field.

  6. Probably... by macshune · · Score: 5, Informative

    I've seen many businesses that still run NT4 and I even know a few folks that still use 3.1, but the latter is the exception, rather than the rule. It's pretty expensive to upgrade software, not just in the cost of the product itself, but in lost productivity and people-hours needed to perform the upgrade. when you have a large organization these costs can be prohibitive and procrastination seems very attractive. of course, any other slashdotter probably could tell you the same thing...

    1. Re:Probably... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      procrastination seems very attractive. of course, any other slashdotter probably could tell you the same thing.

      I could have done but I thought that if I waited a bit maybe someone else would say it and save me the bother.

  7. 10 years of support... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Does this mean that they don't think they can keep up the 'a new version every 3 years and you will migrate' strategy? If so, is that because they can't make enough new products (Longhorn >= 2007 ? ) or can't get people to migrate.

    1. Re:10 years of support... by kfg · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If so, is that because they can't make enough new products (Longhorn >= 2007 ? ) or can't get people to migrate.

      Yes. As software improves it gets harder and harder to improve it. As software improves people see less and less reason to upgrade.

      It's called "maturation," which, for some reason, most propriatary software makers never saw coming.

      KFG

    2. Re:10 years of support... by kfg · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, I really don't think the bugs are there to drive the upgrade cycle. I think the bugs are they because they really don't give a shit. Shoddy workmanship. Not the fault, for the most part, of the programmers either, but of the entire aura of the software industry, reaching even into the training the programers get in college. A lot of OSS programers fall prey to this too I'm afraid and the majority of selftaught off the internet programers don't even know enough to know what they don't know, but defend their ignorance vehemently.

      It all makes for a lot of crappy programing on all sorts of levels and there are certainly still all sorts of improvements to be made in all sorts of places.

      But even given all that software is still maturing. A word processor is a word processor and MS word processors and their spawn hit their peak with 97. emacs and vi just keep working, and working, and working. . .

      No, I really think most of the propriatary companies really believed that by following their policy of only releasing upgrades in slow cycles well below the rate they were actually developing product they could extend the process for decades, relying on technology to outpace their own release cycle.

      Yes, this has certainly played a role in letting OSS catch up and even pass their product in some cases.

      I think some of the companies just didn't think about it at all. They were young and just got caught up in the whole fervor of the thing, ploughed ahead blindly and got surprised when software turned out to be just another technology business prey to all the laws of the real world.

      Microsoft is a special case though. It's a company founded on a cult of personality more than anything else. I've never seen a company, except maybe early IBM, simply exude the personality of its founder more than Microsoft.

      And Bill is one of these people who simply does not acknowledge other people as valid other people. He has a "right to innovate." He has a right to conduct business however he likes, because his like is what's right. We get to do what he says, when he says it because we don't share his rights.

      So Microsoft simply thought they could make us upgrade forever without ever even considering that we might simply refuse. It wasn't in their world view that that was possible.

      And OSS catching up and even surpassing their product in some cases (well, virtually all really. The best Windows programs don't come from Microsoft) is certainly playing a role in disquieting them. It rattles their whole view of cosmology.

      Like the Protestant Reformation rattled the Pope.

      OSS has its own problem with maturation though. It likes to press ever onward at increasing speed and yesterday's project becomes uninteresting.

      Somebody has to do the last two percent of finishing up a project and tying a bow on it. In OSS this only seems to happen with the console programs.

      KFG

  8. It's an improvement, but... by tji · · Score: 5, Interesting

    free server licenses to its Software Assurance Program customers, if the PC is not actually used in production and is not present on the network

    That's a step in the right direction. But, I am not a big fan of that type of licensing. I ran into several applications that used this same logic. The problem is that we architect our services for automatic failover. So, the backup server must be available on the network at all times, and when the criteria for failover are met, it instantly takes over. It may even by synchronizing data in the background all the time.

    Only one server is every active at any given time, but both need to be running. Some licenses allow for this. But, it's obviously much harder to enforce licensing limitations in this model. It almost has to be an honor system, unless the application is fully HA aware and can ensure only one is active at any time.

  9. 10 years?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    IT guy: Lets switch to linux, otherwise we're simply going to fall behind our competitors
    MD: No way! We still have 3 years on our licensing with Microsoft, we can't just throw money away!

    [in 3 years]
    MD: Hey Microsoft have given us a new 40% discount for a 3,000 year licensing plan! We can't possibly move to Linux now!

  10. No network - no update ? by e_AltF4 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    ... and is not present on the network
    If you need your "free" backup sever after 18 months without any network connection (updates, security patches and application changes) and then attach it to the internet you might be not so happy with the results.

    Sasser & Co would eat you alive before you could even say "Hell, where's the Windows Update Button ?" or "Why is this crashing ? We installed the fix for the application 6 months ago!".

    Hopefully MS will allow network connections for updates. It would probably be cheaper to have a license ready instead of burning the "Update DVDs Du Jour" just in case you need it.

    Just my 5 €-Cents
  11. So, um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What you're saying is that

    1. Microsoft isn't going to make people play for licenses of Windows that they aren't using

    2. Microsoft isn't going to force upgrades anymore, at least not exactly.

    Gee, how altruistic of them.

  12. Yes, in ten years, if not longer by DragonHawk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When it comes to budget, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" rules the day. Companies would prefer to keep using the same computer systems forever, if they did the job. And I cannot say that's really a wrong attitude.

    Of course, at many companies, the attitude is "even if it is broke, don't fix it unless it's stopping production outright". I just spent two weeks in a rather insane upgrade-a-thon at a customer, because they got bought by a larger company, and their new corporate IT department nearly had a heart attack when they saw the state of their systems. Many computers were stilling running Windows 95. Their main server was running Novell NetWare 4.11. These products are ten years old, unsupported, obsolete, and flat out broken. Win95 can't even get a DHCP lease without three patches (Y2K bugs). Oh, and a fleet of ten megabit unmanaged repeaters. And dead anti-virus software. And missing the disks for the backup software. And...

    When corporate deployed their anti-virus software to this site, it darn near exploded. Over 8000 infected files on one PC alone. Their WAN guys were screaming bloody murder about all the worm traffic coming from this site.

    It was great fun. For sufficiently small definitions of "fun".

    --

    dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
    I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
  13. Wow, this is soo insightful. by OldSchoolNapster · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The only thing Microsoft could do to improve their software is open their source code? Amazing.

    I'll bet the guys in Redmond are slapping their foreheads as they read this post thinking, "All this time we have been doing things like making the Windows more stable (my laptop running XP hasn't crashed ONCE since my last reinstall) and supporting all kinds of wierd software and hardware, and making it easy to use. What we should have done is be more like Linux. That's easy to use and supports almost every component ever made, right?"

    I don't know what is more sad, that somebody bothered to post this drivel, that somebody modded it up, or that people actually believe it.

    Now if you will excuse me, I have to go find out which .conf file(s) I need to edit to get my tv-tuner card to work in my linux box.

    --
    bit trollent
    1. Re:Wow, this is soo insightful. by RoLi · · Score: 5, Funny
      my laptop running XP hasn't crashed ONCE since my last reinstall

      Comedy gold...

  14. Same old practice? by vector0319 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This article seems to remind me of the same thing M$ has been doing for years. They drop prices, work out licensing deals with organizations (ala University of Maryland), give away stuff, etc just to get their product in your hands, on your network, and essential to your computing life. M$ is not dumb. They have alot of smart people all working towards the same goal.

    Also I don't think linux pressure has anything to do with it. I'm just sick of their licensing practices period and I think that attitude is what is changing things. Who wants to pay extra money to have a server sitting around doing nothing? Not me. That being said I would rather use linux for core systems whenever possible.

    Anyway I think alot of the posts so far are good especially the one pertaining to the updates on an offline server.

    --
    My well being does not depend on my slashdot score.
  15. Uh oh, the Redmond Mind Trick! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As usual, they make a big deal of changes that are complete bullshit. Like there were people who were thinking, "Gee, I wish I could build a redundant server in case we ever need it, but that would mean buying an extra license or violating our existing license. I better just hope nothing happens to our primary server."

    These are not the licensing changes you're looking for, move along.

  16. Another nice support story... by da5idnetlimit.com · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Chemical company, has a big, proprietary machine specially made to run some simples mixes-and-test in an automated manner.

    Damn thing breaks, refuses to start the procedure...

    reboot gives nada...oki, I have to move myself to that lab and see for myself.

    80186...yuck...Dos...yuck...
    No doc, cryptic error message from the (also) proprietary software...

    Call the company that made this (still exists ! yeah !!!) and they tell me they don't have ANYONE in their organisation that has any sort of experience with that old beast... and that If I am ready to wait, they can have the documentation out of deep storage in just under a week...YUCK!

    BUT !!! they also have a name and phone number in their file about a guy that seem to be a specialist on the hardware...
    Maybe there IS an IT Gos somewhere, smiling at me...?!?

    After a quick phone call, I have some shocking news :

    1/ The guy is dead (god bless...) at a nice 85.

    2/ The guy was the former head of the Lab...yes, the Lab I was trying to service. He took retirement some 10 years ago, and was kindly making maintenance to his former company, being the one that ordered and used the machine in his time...

    ordering a full replacement machine is in the 5 zeros order....

    => I now have a nice undergraduate CS Student that is building an interface with a more modern machine (PII something I found ready for the trash bin), using Linux and the docs that came from the builder...

    It might even have a GUI 8)

    --
    It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
  17. Good news for DRM by aussie_a · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Licenses are the olden day version of DRM. They're restrictive (if followed) and take away our right to do stuff with software we supposedly own (which we really don't. We just rent it).

    How the hell did such licenses become so popular? Because there was no competition. Everyone was doing it so you had a choice. Use software with a restrictive license or don't use software. But we have alternatives now, so why does everyone still use software with restrictive licenses? Because the software became the standard (i.e. Microsoft).

    People are shit-scared this will happen with DRM. But this article shows alternatives slowly starting to alter restrictive licenses. This is a Good Thing (TM) because if they can do it after such licenses have become the norm, they should be able to affect DRM and hurt it a lot.