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Microsoft Bends To Norwegian Pressure

Posted by kdawson on from the keeping-competitors-out dept.

Martin writes "Microsoft has agreed to change the terms of its school agreement contract with Norwegian regional municipalities, following a complaint by Norwegian open-source software company Linpro to the Norwegian Competition Authority. Microsoft 'introduced two kinds of flexibility in the agreement, that were previously missing,' the head of the company's Norway operations said. One of these 'kinds of flexibility' involved Microsoft not getting paid a license fee for each Linux and Mac computer in schools."

4 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I don't understand by badfish99 · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's not a fee for distributing OS/X; it's a fee per machine.

    The usual licensing terms that Microsoft force on OEMs are that Microsoft must be paid a fee per machine sold, regardless of whether it has Windows installed on it or not. Of course the idea of this is to encourage OEMs to install Windows on every machine they sell, because they can't make a saving from not doing so. If you try to negotiate a "per copy of Windows" price instead of a "per machine" price, the licensing cost goes up to the retail cost, which is deliberately inflated to make it uneconomic.

  2. Re:Buyer beware by gnud · · Score: 4, Informative

    Heh. Even after two previews. Since our justice department is NOT bought, like yours.

  3. Re:I don't think they have that anymore to Dell... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Because Dell's Ubuntu machines are slightly cheaper than their Window's equivalents, last I heard. I don't think they would do that if they still had to pay per machine.

    Though I am sure a lot of OEMs get the per machine treatment.

    Microsoft has been specifically forbidden in the U.S. for doing per machine sold licenses as a result of losing one of the antitrust cases. I'm not sure about the bundling B.S..

  4. Not exactly. by khasim · · Score: 4, Informative

    There's no "sneaking" involved. It's clearly stated. EVERY machine you have MUST be counted when calculating the license fee.

    No matter what runs on that machine.

    Or how old it is.

    Or what it does.

    If you do not want to go with the Microsoft contract, you may purchase retail versions of Windows for each machine. And hope that you're fully compliant. Because the fines for piracy are far more than the cost of just paying Microsoft for every single box you have no matter what.