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Microsoft Charging Businesses $4K for DST Fix

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the pricey-way-to-tell-time dept.

eldavojohn writes "Microsoft has slashed the price it's going to charge users on the daylight saving time fixes. As you know, the federal law that moves the date for DST goes into effect this month. Although the price of $4000 is 1/10 of the original estimate Microsoft made, it seems a bit pricey for a patch to a product you've already paid for. From the article: 'Among the titles in that extended support category are Windows 2000, Exchange Server 2000 and Outlook 2000, the e-mail and calendar client included with Office 2000. For users running that software, Microsoft charges $4,000 per product for DST fixes. For that amount, customers can apply the patches to all systems in their organizations, including branch offices and affiliate.' The only thing they can't do, said a Microsoft rep, is redistribute them."

5 of 395 comments (clear)

  1. free patches are available by ceresur · · Score: 5, Informative

    We are using this patch at my organization for all our Win2k and Win2k Server boxes out there (running legacy apps that we don't need to upgrade). http://www.intelliadmin.com/blog/2007/01/unofficia l-windows-2000-daylight.html

  2. innovation by Epiphenomenon · · Score: 5, Funny

    I for one think that $4000 for innovation like this is a small price to pay.

  3. there are free utils to patch this by jjeffries · · Score: 5, Informative

    There's a free patcher here that I've used on a few 2k machines and one NT4 machine and nothing has blown up thus far.

    First link under "freeware downloads".

  4. Re:things that make you go hmmm... by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's a little different. You're comparing a fix for a defective product to a patch to change behavior to fit an unforseeable change in timekeeping logic. And, please note that these products aren't even officially being supported anymore (thus, the service charge).

    I'm not trying to defend MS, but there's no need to make dodgy comparisons... One can surmise that open-source users will likely have an easier time making this change, seeing as they don't have to rely on a corporation to update their binaries.

    --
    Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
  5. Relatively Inexpesive by Christopher_G_Lewis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This fee is all inclusive. That means any product in extended support, and any DST related patch.

    So that includes:
        Windows 2000 Server straight DST patch
        Windows 2000 CRT DST patch (Never heard of that one? See here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932955/en-us/ and here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932590/en-us/
        Exchange running on W2K
        Visual Studio 6.0 patches (I believe...)

    So $4000 to cover *all* unsupported systems, and to have a human to call and say "Your patch screwed up my server" and have them fix it, is to be cliche, Priceless

    --
    www.christopherlewis.com