Microsoft Piracy Plan Means Concerns for IT

coondoggie writes to mention an article on Information Week about possible unintended consequences of the Microsoft Software Protection Plan (SPP) discussed on Slashdot on Wednesday. The new initiative is intended to protect consumers from pirated software, but may cause major headaches for IT shops. From the article: "Microsoft will support SPP in current and future reporting and asset management tools such as System Center Operations Manager. 'On paper it might sound pretty good, but we have to see how it works,' says Jeff Allred, manager of network services for the Duke University Cancer Center. One of his concerns is that a reduced functionality mode kicks in three days after changing out a motherboard in a server if the software is not revalidated. 'That really jumped out at me. We change out motherboards in our servers all the time,' he says. The provision only covers a swap with a non-OEM motherboard, which Allred admits doesn't happen often."

Comments

This is the correct link to the story

[rcb1974]

I believe this is the correct link to the story: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/100506-micro soft-antipiracy.html?t5

Re:Motherboards

[silas_moeckel]

That would be a lot of servers, I ran a 2500 server shop for a few years and I think I can cound motherboard swap outs on my hands. Hard drives 10-20 a day memory a few a week power supplies about the same but motherboards generaly lasted till the server got decommisioned. Now we did move an OS from one box to another very often and this whole activation garbage would be annoying.