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On Moving Toward Software Rentals
CowboyRobot writes "ACM Queue has an article about the emergence of a service-oriented model of software delivery, supported by the W3C, IBM, HP, and Microsoft.
They already have their acronyms down: WSDL (Web Services Description Language), UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration), and WSFL (Web Services Flow Language).
The article primarily covers the three phases of negotiating, ending with actual service delivery."
will consist of deployment of a crappy too-thick-to-be-thin client, with poor response time, and broken widgets. The vendor will claim that it is due to either 1) client-side misconfigurations, or 2) unanticipated variations in the environment, both of which will be ironed out via a Professional Services contract accompanying the software "delivery". The end result will be the creation of numerous roles at the client's expense to "manage" and "coordinate" the software delivery, frustration at the end-user level, raises and kudos for the middle managers who jumped on the bandwagon, and fat wallets on the part of the shovelware designers.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
This sounds like a great idea. There have been times when I needed a piece of software just for a one or two time use, and the only things out there for my particular need had high license fees. However, what bothers me is that MS is involved with it. I am worried that they will make the technology OS specific, and finally get a foothold in the internet 'standards' (read MS standards) that they have been trying to do for so long.
My
Is there a need for a new Creative Commons license type that says "if you server services using this technology, I need to share the source"?
I think no existing license covers that need very well today.
Other than that I think these companies seem to be accepting the fact that nobody wants to pay high prices for software that is going to become obsolete in matter of months. At least that is the impression I got. Now that they realize that nobody want to pay, they need to find a better strategy of making money. First of all, subscription might be OK for a lot of non-geeks that do not care about their software not being theirs. They just want software that can help them with what ever they are doing.
Wouldn't a suscription method mean that we are going into the direction of a free software method in which we only pay for support and other related services?
Everything I want for computer use is pretty much existing in a state I already own (Office, Visual C), or is being developed by a more open/donaiton system (Firefox,Thunderbird,Filezilla,Sunbird). There's a limited amount of applications I would LIKE, and none that I NEED, that don't really exist yet. So why in hell would I pay a monthly service fee for word? When I believe Word 97 was just fine, and now instead prefer OpenOffice more(majority of the time I just use notepad.exe).
The only avenue I see that could possibly get away with rental systems is the game industry, but only if they're rental prices severally undercut store prices. (Halflife 2?). That's the only area where there's consitently a new killer app that is needed. Not exactly IBM's home turf. Mircosoft on the other hand...
Bah, screw the entire thing, just disrupte w/ Bittorrents and Coral, and ask for donations.
Okay, that's 'the glass is half empty' reaction. What about 'the glass is half full'?
... well.. you're stuck with it if it doesn't do what you ask.
a.) We all know that software promises are iffy at best. When you need to get a job done, and software promises to do it, it really is no guarantee, is it? Demo ware is sometimes helpful, but few companies do it right. (I'd like to nod in Macromedia and Alias's general direction for making their demo ware work right.) Basically, what they want you to do is buy their software and
My company recently ran into this. There's an app called ZBrush used for texturing 3D models. It has some really cool features that make organic modelling and texturing quite pleasant. (You've seen this software's work in the latter 2 of the LotR movies.) Unfortunately, it's a ~$500 app, and they haven't released a demo yet. We ended up getting it after watching a live demo at Siggraph, but man, that was a happy coincidence in timing. If we could have 'rented' the software for a week to evaluate it, we'd have been a lot happier.
b.) Always up to date! Imagine not needing to shell out hundreds of bucks for an upgrade. As long as you're subscribing, you should (in theory, anyway) be using the most up to date software. Done right, this could mean virtually instantaneous security updates, for example. No more people lagging behind with older software perpetuating the problem. No more "I can't open that file!" Etc.
c.) Mobile licenses. More and more companies are trying to prevent people from installing software on multiple machines. Sadly, those of us with laptops and home stations to do work on get bitten. I'll go back to ZBrush's example. They have a locking scheme kind of like Windows'. It id's itself to your hardware, and that's it, that's the only software you can unlock to. Unless I call them up and ask them politely (and I've heard they are quite happy to do this...) to unlock my software, I can only use it on the one station. Doh. If done right, I should just be able to log in to a server and say "I wanna use this", it'll check that nobody else is using it, and allow it to run. Sort of like how ICQ works.
d.) Spend less money. I'll use ZBrush as an example, again. First off, I'm reasonably certain that in order to make the subscription scheme work, it has to be competitive with the cost of buying the software outright. I've heard this a number of times before. (Remember, this is 'the glass half full' comparison, not a prediction) My company is going to reach a point where ZBrush will probably be inactive for a long time. If we could cancel/suspend the subscription then, at the end of a year, we could potentially spend less than we did to buy it a month ago.
Now, I want to reiterate something here. This is simply an optimist's view. Who knows how it'll play out? The worst that'll happen is nobody will want to use it. The best is that we get an experience better than we have today. Works for me.
"Derp de derp."
I thought the market already rejected this idea!
Oh well, even if they didn't, I can't see this approach finding any more than a niche market because for commodity software, the price has to be low enough to outweigh the benefits of ownership.
Nobody is going to pay $150/year to rent MS Office Pro when OpenOffice is free to own. $30/year, maybe, but then MS has to make a decision about whether that price is too low to be worthwhile. Actually, at $30/year *I* have to wonder if it's worth it, but then I can't stand the last few version of office because of all the annoying "non-features" I have to turn off to get actual work done.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
>Wouldn't a suscription method mean that we are going into the direction of a free software method in which we only pay for support and other related services?
It would if you think it would.
Joe Looser used to pay $90 for bundled Windows XP OEM Edition before, now he'll pay $10/month with a special 25% discount if he buys 12 months at once.
And IBM won't even allow you to buy less than 6 months of service...
All in all - the same shit in a different package.
Some people will feel great about it, others will frown on it (especially those who used to get pirated client-side software which later becomes server-side only).
SOA refers to a method of software architecture that is en vouge- not just a sneaky business model as the post suggests. I'm sure some businesses will jump on the SOA bandwagon for the idea of subscriber-based income, but those that do so for that reason alone will fail.
.NET, C++, and many other languages.
Web Services, WSDL, etc., all parts of implementing SOA, are essentially ways to provide software services via some network transport (typically HTTP). This makes sense for alot of things. For example, integrating inventory systems in real time. In days gone by, Company A would provide some random way for Company B to access it's inventory/price sheet. Text files, spreadsheets, EDI, etc. All SOA does is apply a machine-readable contract to the process. It says "this server will answer requests that look like ABC with data that looks like XYZ." WSDL, Web Services, etc. are all just about defining that "contract" to cover things like security, data types, etc.
Ironically, this allows for more diversity in the actual implementations. It doesn't matter if your service is provided on a $20,000 HP/W2K3 box running IIS or a $200 Linux box running Apache- as long as it provides a description of it's service, others can consume it- again using whatever language they choose. There are already implementations for most of these standards for Java, PHP, Perl,
So, put up the tin foil, this isn't a massive conspiracy to get you to pay each time you open your "word processor service." It's just a better way to provide data services where they make sense.
How about this scenario: You do a bunch of work for a major client. Right before release, your provider tells you that the version of ZBrush you were using is no longer offered. Oh, by the way, the files generated by the last version won't work with the new one. Sorry 'bout that. Conclusion: you're screwed, you no longer have the option of running the old files on the old version until you've migrated, etc. And don't tell me that software vendors don't break backwards compatibility all the time, either.
By the way, ZBrush now offers a demo: http://pixologic.com/support/contents.html
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
I have a hard time swallowing the marketing spin about the customer benefits of this service-oriented approach to software sales. This model is simply a steady revenue stream for software vendors, who will then no longer have to justify to people the advantages of upgrading to the latest version of their software - they simply switch off the software if discontinue payments. As a software developer, I admit this is a deal is fantastic, there's basically no downside, just an upside. As a customer, I much prefer the service oriented approach of the commercial open-source establishment - get the software free, and pay for training and support. Vertical market software developers have been coming up with these schemes for years. There's simply no way a vertical market software developer can survice if they sell software only, as their customer base is much narrower than off-the-shelf software.
What has UDDI, WSDL and WSFL to do with renting of software? .... ...
No I did not RTFA
The poster of the story should have made his story better to get me to RTFA
WSDL ^= CORBA IDL for XML RPC aka SOAP
UDDI ^= universal directory and discovery service, aka a phonebook or DNS for SOAP
WSFL ^= web sergvice flow language aka process or work flow definition for web services or web based applications
That all is TECHNIQUE,
renting is a BUSINESS MODEL.
Most of the poster to this article seem not to see that difference.
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The first step for the corporate elite in the 1870s-1930s was to try to remove the idea from the public consciousness that natural law is a legitimate basis for our legal system. Then it began to push for a steady expansion of intellectual property law into previously unacceptable domains. Originally patents were very hard to get, you had to produce something truly unique, now you can patent business models!
This is all part of a general push away from an ownership society to a corporatist renter society. Capitalism is not to blame here, fascism is, because it is capitalist doctrine that is directly at odds with copyright holders. Capitalism gave us the concept of a government protecting everyone's property rights and not regulating most aspects of the economy to ensure that no class of business had an advantage over another. It was fascism that gave birth to the idea of controlling the economy to "protect industry."
The software rental model is intended to be the final blow to the idea that customers should have a property right in software. Pseudo-capitalists can come out all they like about how "choice" is what really matters, but choice is utterly irrelevent in every respect when basic property rights are not an option anymore. When no one can own their software in any way, to any degree, the difference between competitors becomes inherently pathetic and trite, just like the major parties in 2000 and 2004.
So what happens? Software companies use patents to protect their business model where copyright law isn't enough, by going after upstarts offering an ownership-friendly model.
But what many geeks and nerds won't get out of this, is that this battle has been raging for not a few decades but for about 144, the first battle being the American Civil War. The public schools frequently gloss over three very curious facts about the Civil War, because that would make Abraham Lincoln look like the most fascist stooge in American history:
Now does it become clearer, when you consider the almost 1 and a half century history of this fight, why the federal government really is a government of the people, by the people and for the corporations? Look at the push for things like UCITA, the goal is to essentially in the long run whittle down and destroy the state contract laws and nationalize them, so that the states, the governments much closer to you and your wishes, and thus further from corporate control than the feds, cannot protect you from the monied interests.
There never has been a conspiracy, because the elite has always had the audacity to operate in the open. For the last several decades, they have unabashedly eschewed any pretense of being Adam Smith-style capitalists and their economic model draws upon a more sophisticated, and moderately liberal version of Mussolini's fascist doctrines. What do you think, "protecting and advancing American economic interests" really means? Adam Smith would call it that vile system of Mercantilism which was an influence on socialism and at odds with laisez faire capitalism.
People have asked me why I vote libertarian, it is because they are capitalists. The party was born and bred from an ideological pedigree concerned with the minimization of the elite's power and influence and the preservation of an ownership society
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
Well, I hope that you are correct in that free-market forces will be able to determine what is best. The real question is whether they will even be allowed to. My own feeling (I know, half-empty, doom and gloom) is that the free-market (i.e., the user base) will have little say in the matter. There is so much desire to maximize profit (as in "squeeze water from a rock") among big software companies that I fear the idea of a total end-user lock-in is irresistible. And as broadband penetration becomes more and more significant (apparently this year the number of high-speed installations exceeded the number of dial-ups) this scheme will become even easier to foist upon us.
Personally, I detest the idea of automatic updates. I don't want my software changing until I have reviewed whatever the new version offers and have made a considered decision to upgrade. It would be hell on a corporation if Microsoft decided to "autoupgrade" all of its users and suddenly all the user menus changed. Nobody would be able to do anything and productivity would come to a screeching halt. That's an extreme example, of course, but, honestly, most users would rather the software they have simply work in the manner to which they've become accustomed and not be "upgraded" (i.e., change) all the time forcing yet another learning curve. How many of us really use any more than 1% of all the stuff built into, say, Microsoft Office? And if we did learn everything it can do, by the time we have the latest version will have changed so much that our efforts would have been wasted. Office is so complex and so full of features and is such a continually moving target from the user's perspective that having it mutate even more often would hardly be perceived as an improvement.
And all of this "software as a subscription" business depends entirely upon a reliable Internet (ha) and a software supplier that is able to effectively build and maintain the required network infrastructure. Microsoft has shown, time and time again, that it cannot be trusted to manage a big network: for example, their instant messaging services have had repeated failures on a global scale. I, for one, would not be happy if my company was unable to even send an email because Microsoft's subscription management servers went offline for a while. And that will happen, you know that. And what happens when a company suffers an Internet outage and can't get access to the server-side component of their critical business applications? No, there are definite advantages to maintaining ownership of important software and being as independent as possible of the vendor.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
- You don't own it
- They can monitor you
- They can refuse access if they want
While software rental increases the amount of potential pain for users, it's still also be possible for a company to do a very good job, both technically and ethically.Please take off the tin foil hat; it is causing brain wave interference.
Do you think that this new model will automatically kill Open Source? You'll "read yourRead my blog: HansMast.com
This brings up an interesting point. What if Microsoft, or some other large vendor of commonly used software, went to the subscription model and someone DDOS'd the authentication servers (kind of like what happend to WindowsUpdate)? How much money would they and their clients lose as a result of everyone being locked out of their software? This is too much of a single point of failure for people to be comfortable with.
The problem is service/rental is that you become beholden to the service, thus you incur a hidden cost due to risk because you could run the risk of losing access to your own data or processes if you can't make the monthly payments. In the non-rental mode, s/w to control your data and processes become sunk cost at worst with ready substitution of the status quo in lieu of new purchases (expenses). There is no compensation for this added cost for the user in the rental model, while the producer is gaining a cashflow series that was originally a single transction - software rental == higher NPV for the seller and lower NPV for the buyer, making it a simple and audacious market power grab.
Rightly, buyers will expect some compensation (I've yet to hear a single argument s/w rentals that really holds water) to justify switching. Otherwise you can expect the creation of non-rental substitutes (Open Source?) or the creation of black markets.
JG
There's an easier way to bypass the GPL. You release the code, but make it rely on data files which are proprietary, copyrighted, and trademarked.
This is already done by everyone from id Software to the Mozilla project.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
- A virus scanner without regular updates?
- Payroll software without the current tax formulas?
- Legal software without the latest laws and precedents?
- "Glass cockpit" avionics without current traffic info, frequencies, weather etc?
Anything that requires regular updates lends itself to a rental model. Doesn't mean you have to ASP the whole thing. And btw, what's new here? Who would want to rent an app like Excel that's used frequently but rarely changes? Whatever Microsoft might want, there's still enough competition from previous versions and OSS to stop that from happening.One of these days I'm moving to Theory - everything works there