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Microsoft 'Open Value Subscription' is None of the Above
daveofdoom writes "This week Microsoft launched an SMB program that contains the words 'open', 'value' and 'subscription', none of which are common to Microsoft products, culture, or marketing. Digging in a bit I found myself confused not only by what the program portends to be but why it would be called 'Open Value Subscription' unless they were hoping to leverage buzzwords and concepts related to open source and SaaS (software as a service). It's such lame and dishonest branding the marketing group should be ashamed."
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Use of property for a fixed amount of time is not a lease? The program described just that. At the end of the lease you can 1) sign up for a new term 2) buy out the lease to own the software or 3) end it all.
Please, give me your definition of lease, and then explain to me if RentACenter offers some kind of tax advantage.
Actually, lameness and dishonesty are generally marks of distinction in the advertising world. In fact, just the other day my creative director was telling me, "What is this crap?! It's neither lame nor dishonest!"
Seriously though, you can't expect anything beyond the most vague truthiness from marketing. Even the FTC's guidelines for truth in advertising are brilliantly open for interpretation.
While I'm all for a good Microsoft Bashing Session, just about every marketing department everywhere could be pinned for this type of "deceptive" practice.
Mod my comments down. It'll be fun.
Microsoft has referred to their MSDN stuff as a subscription, or at least used to. I dunno, I weened myself off the redmond teat a long time ago and no longer have to deal with their crappy products.
And now that I think about it, Value is a pretty normal thing to put in the name of something. So that leaves us with Open, and if you read what the thing actually is, a slightly flexible account without exact license numbers on it, that actually makes some sense.
In other words, this is a pretty normal product name, a guy going off in a post for no reason to abuse Microsoft when there are plenty of GOOD reasons to abuse Microsoft, and an editor who really, really can't tell what is news.
7. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.
I'm guessing that the submitter is a Linux guy looking to make some anti-Microsoft noise on a slow news day. Why?
Digging in a bit I found myself confused not only by what the program portends to be but why it would be called it 'Open Value Subscription' unless they were hoping to leverage buzzwords and concepts related to open source and SaaS (software as a service).
It's not an attempt to trade on buzzwords and concepts related to Open Source and SaaS. Microsoft has used the term "Open" for years in their licensing programs (at least a decade that I'm aware of).
For years there have been three main categories of volume licenses. They are "Open" (for small businesses who only buy a handful of licenses at a time), "Select" (for large businesses with higher purchasing requirements) and "Enterprise" (for the largest organizations). As you move up the tiers the per-license cost gets lower and the associated benefits increase. For example, if you have an Open license you are expected to buy a license before deploying software. With the higher level agreements you are required to perform a regular "true-up" where you audit the number of licenses in use, compare that count to the number of licenses you own, and then buy enough to cover the gap. At the highest level you are only required to true-up annually. As you can imagine, this makes it a lot more difficult for the BSA to come in and claim that you're using unlicensed software.
The "Value" part of the name refers to features that are included with the volume license plans, and the actual "Value" increases as you move up the tiers. "Value" benefits can include a set number of Microsoft Consulting hours per year, a number of "free" support incidents, and a number of units of training on Microsoft products. Some even include vouchers for Microsoft certification exams.
The "Subscription" part of the name refers to the fact that you are paying an annual licensing fee. This used to be simply called Software Assurance, but nobody was buying it. Instead they started bundling more benefits and called it what it is, an annual subscription.
So there's no mystery there, and certainly nobody trying to trade on the good names of "Open Source" and "SaaS."
I just love how people who know nothing about Microsoft other than "I'm supposed to hate them" are always jumping to the most nefarious conclusions based on the most flimsy and innocuous of evidence.
"Fighting its negative image"?
That's funny, since Fortune Magazine apparently has MS rated as the 12th most admired company nationwide.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/mostadmired/2007/top20/index.html
Depreciations. Businesses can deduct depreciation costs from their taxes. If you don't actually own the software, or lease it, you cannot legally offset your taxes with depreciation.
Here here...as one who sells this stuff everyday, I can tell you that the recent changes make things even harder than they were...and they were no picnic.
Microsoft is now making is so incredibly hard for resellers to manage licensing that it takes 5 hoops to jump through what 2 would accomplish pre-change.
If only these people complaining would see the 150 page MS Sales Tool Kit that I have to rifle through to get sku numbers.. it really should not be this hard. How about CALS or SA? You do need to go to school to make it all make sense...
And yes, Open Value has been around for many years and nothing, absolutely nothing to do with Open Source in any way.
on what the definition of "il" il?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.