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Windows 7 Licensing a "Disaster" For XP Shops
snydeq writes "Enterprise licensing for Windows 7 could cause major headaches and add more cost to the Windows 7 migration effort, InfoWorld reports. Under the proposed license, businesses that purchase PCs with Windows 7 pre-installed within six months of the Oct. 23 launch date will be able to downgrade those systems to XP, and later upgrade back to Windows 7 when ready to migrate users. PCs bought after April 22, 2010, however, can only be downgraded to Vista — no help for XP-based organizations, which would be wise to wait 12 to 18 months before adopting Windows 7, so that they can test hardware and software compatibility and ensure their vendors' Windows 7 support meets their needs. XP shops that chose not to install Vista will have to either rush their migration process or spend extra to enroll in Microsoft's Software Assurance program, which allows them to install any OS version — for about $90 per year per PC."
Most shop will just ignore this little twist and downgrade to xp anyway. No sane admin will run a mix of os on user workstations if he can prevent it.
Upgrade to downgrade and then to upgrade again..... I wonder if Bing.com will become bong then bing again?
Sig? No thanks. I don't smoke.
More good will and love from Microsoft. Unfortunatly, for most of these "shops", Linux is not an option, as they are too entrenched with Ballmer and crew.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
And yet, somehow I fear that even this will not usher in The Year of Linux on the Desktop.
How about just "Sell XP Licenses" or is that too easy?
crazy dynamite monkey
Is this number right? For $90/yr/pc, I can install any MSFT operating system?
Why isn't this program publicized? I am a small business and I have to tell you...the entire Windows licensing system is very very difficult to navigate. And I am 100% certain that is "by design". The more confused they can make me, the more money they can extract out of me and my company (or so they think).
In actual practice, I don't mind spending money where needed and $90/yr/pc seems about fair for a Windows OS.
Bonus points if someone can point me to a vendor who will sell it to me.
We're on XP...
They are thinking of going Vista because of the 1 on 1 MS support we have.
Most techs here are well against any move away from XP...
Vista II or 7 depending what your take is is not an option.
We want out of the M$ revenue tree...
Just code something that works and we'll pay for the patches/upgrades.
Stop trying to sell us new stuff that just takes up more CPU cycles for no good reason.
This industry is going nowhere fast.
End of Line.
M$ has finally came clean and declare that their users don't 'own' a piece of software, or for that matter, a perpetual license on a per system basis. Instead it's a rental license that must be renewed yearly. Failure to do so will result in deactivation and data loss.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
I think the details of this will be filtered out of BING.
If it is a large company $90/yr/pc is an outrageous price. You would be spending more for the operating system than the PC, considering most companies get a fairly good discount when buying large quantities of PCs.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
The software assurance is $90, you still have to purchase whatever license you are installing.
from reading TFA (amazing I know) it sounded like if you have a volume license, no big deal. This would only effect shops buying OEM licenses...
am I wrong on this? It's what the graphic with and without software assurance says...
Vista 7 is made from chilli.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Your kidding right?
Please tell me your actually kidding, and your really a Linux shop making a really funny joke!
Thomas A. Knight
Author of The Time Weaver
Where buying into their subscription service is actually cheaper than upgrading every few releases. Also ending upgrade paths for older releases faster.
A subscription service, as much as I hate them, makes things much easier on both ends. It makes it easier to budget for the company using the software and it makes for a steady revenue stream for the company selling the software. You can end the subscription service any time and still continue using the same version of the software, but no more included upgraded.
If priced correctly every subscription service I've looked at is indeed less expensive than upgrading versions every couple of releases. However, that was with companies who have a written in stone release and support schedule. Autodesk for example, releases a new major version every 12 months and only supports the 3 most current versions.
If MS came out with a new version of Windows every 18-24 months and priced a "subscription" service such that it's 10% cheaper to be on that than paying for upgrades, I'd jump on it.
It's worth wondering if it isn't cheaper over the medium and long term to just start upgrading to Windows 7 in phases as soon as it comes out. First to users that have shown the least need for hand-holding, then at an ever faster pace to users in ascending order of needyness. The XP/Vista options do not look cheaper or any more attractive.
For $699 you can install any Microsoft OS on as many machines as you own for one year. Then after that it's $499 per year.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/subscriptionschart.aspx (scroll down to "MSDN Operating Systems")
Geeze! That was the worst karma whoring post I've seen in a looooong time! It's not far from, "I don't care! We run Linux!"
I'm sure there will be Mac shop admins saying the same thing later on.
A better way you could have K whored would have been to say "Hmmm. What I think this will do is start shops migrating to Linux distros with desktops that are clones of XP. This will only hurt Microsoft in the end."
See? Sounds intelligent and like you're stating an educated opinion. The mods would see it and think, "Hmmmm. This guy has a point and it's a positive post about Linux."
Work on it.
P.S. It can work with Apple - replace "Linux" with "Apple" above - sometimes, though. OSX doesn't have the cache that Linux does regarding topics like this.
Anecdotal observation time. I just built a new desktop and am planning on using it as a testbed. I have a homebrew distro of XP called XP 64-bit Ultimate which is intended to be a current, patched, up-to-date version of XP so you're not stuck downloading several hundred megs of patches and cruft when you do a new install. I also have Ubuntu 9.04 and the beta for Windows 7.
Ubuntu worked right out of the box, decent default viddy drivers, network card detected. Sound isn't working but I hadn't expected any of it to work since this is a newish motherboard with everything integrated so that's much better than I expected. XP had a worse default viddy driver and no networking. Of course, I managed to kill Ubuntu trying to get the full ATI drivers working but that's probably just a silly mistake made overlooking something.
Now I know that people will say "n00b, you can slipstream stuff into your custom build of xp your such a linux fanboy" etc etc but what's nice about Ubuntu is you don't have to dick with any of that stuff. Distros release very frequently and you can burn a new CD whenever you want. You can't even cheat with Windows and borrow someone's more recent CD because your legally-purchased key won't likely be compatible.
This is a roundabout way of saying that for all the unfamiliar quirks and different ways of doing things, open source is so much nicer to work with simply due to the lack of the licensing model.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
My fingers are up in the air when I read "disaster". At least SD is trying to let you know when a title is being over dramatic.
If your software license rep doesn't know about software assurance, run, don't walk to someone else. Any authorized Microsoft license rep that manages Open, Open Value, Select, or Enterprise Licensing should know about software assurance.
You buy a PC before April 23, 2010, you can get XP on it. Buy it after that date and you can't get XP on it. IT wants XP because it doesn't know whether Windows 7 will support everything it needs and doesn't want to use Vista because it sucks.
This sounds like a job for Linux, man!
The release candidate will have been available for 11 months come april of next year, which is plenty of time to test hardware. Given that 7 is primarily an upgrade to Vista applications and drivers will not have issues, at least not unknown ones.
Vista can add security and stability to some environments when installed correctly. The same will be true with Windows 7 at final release, and will do so without as many slowdowns that Vista brings.
Just like it's suboptimal to run very old hardware with new operating systems, it's also suboptimal to run new hardware with an old system. Device vendors often fail to provide adequate drivers for outdated operating systems, and like it or not the base hardware in today's systems is completely different than it was back when XP was new.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
No, for $90/PC/year, plus the cost of the open license of Windows, you can run any Microsoft OS you want, technically all the way down to MS-DOS & Windows 3.0.
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I would love to sign up, then flood their call centers with complaints that Win 3.11 won't run on my New i7 build = D
Slavery is the legal fiction that a person is property; A Corporation is the legal fiction that property is a person.
Ironically, I wasted several mental cycles trying to parse that sentence.
What does the D stand for in MSDN again? That's right, Developer. Which is also the only environment that a MSDN server license is allowed to be used in.
"A method of automatically loading a weapon for repeatedly and regularly firing at one's foot without breaking the rythm".
Microsoft has in the last couple of years:
- Released THE most hated OS since WinMe
- Released a confusing myriad of versions of their latest OS' which seek to differentiate by feature set, ultimately pissing off any customer who buys or is forced by a hardware manufacturer to buy an inferior version of the OS only to find that they must upgrade to get important functionality enabled
- Replaced their Office interface with that goddawful ever changing ribbon which certain geeks continue to defend despite it completely ruining productivity, and now they're incorporating it into every damn program they can
- Fired their Aces game development team ending a long running franchise in flight simulation
- Put just about everyone off side with their nutty Windows Genuine campaign
- Fucked up their Zune software with date based bugs
It's like the captain of the ship's drunk at the helm.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Check with CDW.com. They have MS licensing specialists. I think you will find, however, that there is a minimum number of PCs necessary to qualify for this program, which may be why no-one mentioned it to you before,
Did you actually read what's written...MSDN is for testing and dev only. hence the: "Software testers or IT professionals who need to set up test labs with Microsoft operating systems, but do not need additional products. Example: Test or IT staff at a video card manufacturer needs to set up a lab for testing drivers on multiple versions of Windows." If you install MSDN OS in your shop in production and MS knocks on your door...you'll find yourself in court in a snap of a finger. ...it happened to us last year
Brain@Home?
really. just buy Windows 7 licenses and install XP anyway. Does anyone really believe Microsoft will sue over this ?
It will just be a publicity nightmare for them. Microsoft won't like headlines like "Microsoft sues paying customer for using old software".
Actually, It would not surprise me if they are laughed out of court, in some European countries that is ... The US is another matter entirely.
Why upgrade?
If you buy a new box, you'll most likely get the new OS, but for old boxes that still run and will continue to run, why bother? Geeks love new flashy stuff, but users only care if it works.
This is why you have people that still have Office 2000 and run XP as an OS.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
From April, MS will no longer sell you a copy of XP, that's the problem.
See my submission on this and the leaked Windows 7 price hike ($45-$55 for the Starter Edition, up to $40 more expensive than the XP licence for netbook machines!):
http://slashdot.org/submission/1021213/Microsoft---Windows-7-Pricing-Malfunction
Also, using boxen in a sentence is cause for automatic suspension of your nerd license. On the other hand, it also qualifies you to receive a script kiddie license at no charge.
Well, we do have one UNIX box, so I'll have to adjust my pony tail as I think up a response to your quip.
Oh, wait, no, I actually have short hair.
Maybe you need to realize that computers are a commodity and we don't need to overpay for an OS that is at times 1/3 the total price.
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From TFA: "Web apps tuned to Internet Explorer 6, which Microsoft has essentially orphaned. Windows 7 will ship with IE8, which has a compatibility mode for IE7, but not for IE6. And if IT retains IE7 in Windows 7, Silver notes that IE7 lacks an IE6 compatibility mode. So IT must rework its IE6-dependent Web apps or use XP mode to run IE6. Both are hassles."
When Apple releases a new OS and says it's not compatible with the old, there's a huge line to suck Steve Jobs' dick. "Support of legacy software has made Windows a bloated piece of shit. Apple's so smart."
When Microsoft makes a similar change people whine about all the hassles they'll have to go through.
Did you actually read what's written...MSDN is for testing and dev only.
hence the:
"Software testers or IT professionals who need to set up test labs with Microsoft operating systems, but do not need additional products.
Example: Test or IT staff at a video card manufacturer needs to set up a lab for testing drivers on multiple versions of Windows."
If you install MSDN OS in your shop in production and MS knocks on your door...you'll find yourself in court in a snap of a finger. ...it happened to us last year
well don't let them in!
Microsoft and thier upsales programs confuses the crap out of me. They do this shit by design.
I want 100 desktop distros. Period!
Not Desktop Plus more crap
Not desktop + a movie camera and a box of coco puffs
Not desktop and ultimate confusion
Does it run on 1GB of memory?
There is no profit in optimization.
Most businesses have volume license XP keys. They do not buy XP at all. Well, they sort of do pay. They pay a yearly subscription to use those volume keys. Will all those XP keys stop working? Maybe. If microsoft does that, they will be inviting those companies to go to an OS other then one from microsoft. I think those enterprise volume keys will still work.
I'll bet 100 mod points that Windows XP will be available at least a year after Windows 7 release. Microsoft barks a loud bark, but in the end, they tend to buckle under pressure from their biggest supporters.
That's nice.
I don't care. We run octo-core, quad-core, and dual-core machines that do real work and can't waste the CPU cycles on cruft that doesn't accomplish those goals.
Which means we're not "upgrading" to WinVista if we have to waste money on video cards we don't need.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!
I love Linux and my Mac
Hope is the currency of fools
Don't forget that you MUST also purchase an OEM license of Windows with the computer, so you can't buy a computer loaded with Linux or FreeDOS to save a buck. So basically you spend money for the OEM license, money for the open license, and then you pay $90/pc/year. Of course you don't have to buy the open license but once, but you will have to buy the OEM license with every computer.
"...which allows them to install any OS version..."
This "Assurance" is bullshit. XP WILL die eventually, and it will be due to the hardware vendors not writing drivers anymore, not because Microsoft has "assured" you by taking your money. It's already getting difficult to find XP driver support for new hardware out there TODAY, much less 12 - 24 months from now when businesses will still be looking to run XP.
I downloaded windows 7 x64 ultimate RC0 and it worked right out of the box, even the sound, and it automatically installed my NVidia drivers for me.
and it automatically installed my bluetooth drivers, and my webcam drivers, and my xbox controller drivers etc.
Windows 7 is ridiculously easy to set up.
If MS does that, they'd be sued to high heaven.
Mac shops have admins?
I thought they just had baristas.
I hope you're not using a GUI.
And if your work is taking advantage of multiple cores as you imply, I would suggest you DO buy some new video cards, and maybe make use of them to do your "real work".
Hell, DirectX 11 will be giving us all a standard language for GPU computing. No more bullshit between ATi and Nvidia.
But that's from MS. That can't be a good thing.
I'm not sure what this has to do with what I posted, but... whatever does it for you.
Yet you could be running those regressions on GPUs for huge performance increases.
And if you used DirectX 11, you would be able to run that shit on Nvidia OR ATi hardware WITHOUT dealing with CUDA/Stream/OpenCL.
I will, but you need at least a 100 seats to qualify.
Windows 7 Licensing a Disaster
That's all it would take. How many versions? Six? It was a disaster before XP was figured in. Only Microsoft would think that was a good idea.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Most shop will just ignore this little twist and downgrade to xp anyway. No sane admin will run a mix of os on user workstations if he can prevent it.
Guess you live in that mythical land where the bean counters, CIO and CEO all believe in lock-step technology moves. Unlike we here, who must do with when money is available we buy computers, often stuck for choice to what the market is selling at that point (i.e. WinXP boxen not for sale, but Vista are, so we have some Vista boxen.)
Is your ideal company taking applications?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Just put the damn thing together from parts if you are worried about saving a buck.
We tend to replace the video cards every 3-5 years, actually. Our monitors are mostly high-end LCD panels.
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So this is a complete non-problem. OS cost $90 p/y, Person operating the PC cost $90/h. So why again is this the OS cost a problem ? Reminds me of the HHG quote: "If a sentient being is to survive in a universe this big, one thing it cannot afford to have, is a sense of proportion.
Linux on the desktop will come soon I hope.All new versions of os's being out at aprox the same time should be a good thing.Freedom to choose - Linux - The peoples choice! Thanks Microsoft for continuously making it easier and easier to choose Linux.
And they'd still win.
MS has cash to burn and can out-wait any lawsuit.
If you've been following their behavior for a while, it's pretty clear what they're up to. Watch for an increasingly bizarre set of announcements in the coming months, and at least one major backpedal.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It wouldn't matter. You would still need a copy of some OS before you can use your open license.
Are the penalty fees still the same? last I heard it was the cost of the license with no discounts + (3*the cost of the license with no discounts) per machine. Say the license was $100 (to make the math easy) it would be $400 per machine. That can add up fast if you are a medium or large shop.
But doesn't XP still have the most market share? Would a hardware manufacturer be stupid enough to NOT support the most popular OS?
they ahve targets on there shoe?
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You mean if i'm using an 8 year old operating system and a 7 year old browser I may have some issues upgrading to the latest and greatest If i feel like formatting several times and have no idea what XP mode is?
Seriously- the amount of backwards compatibility microsoft gives is ridiculous. Microsoft bends over backwards to provide backwards compatibility- including installing a full copy of an older operating system in their new one. If you cant find some solution that works for you- are aren't actually looking.
Kind of hard for me to answer...I was hired to actually fix that problem (ie install more opensource) to avoid paying next year. But my understanding is that it is extremely expensive, especially since most of the licenses used where MS Server, SQL and Hyper-V.
I was IT manager for a small ($20 mil a year) company in 2001 and it was the worst year of my life. It seems like things are just getting harder and harder to deal with. Good luck guys!
6.8SPC TR of 550, l xwind at 6, drift rt at 26" drops 77". AT has 503 ft-lbs at 1403 fps. FT 0.86
Manpower is expensive. If the current methods fulfil all the requirements, why exactly would they waste time re-engineering all their software? They could likely buy hardware with the same money that'd allow greater expansion of capability than re-engineering the software AND adding new hardware.
It's been a long time.
Don't forget the cost of re-testing critical applications on the new version, and maybe reworking those if Microsoft borked the backwards compatibility.
In some fields it is not even your choice: ;-)
My last job was with a company that makes computer-controlled medical devices that run on Windows. The system as a whole was validated with a certain version of Windows, and an upgrade to a new Windows version would require a new validation process. Talk about lots of paperwork. Now do that every 18-24 months because your OS vendor feels like pushing a new version
C - the footgun of programming languages
Mod parent up.
Grandparent was not insightful.
Those complaining about MS not remaining backward compatible to IE6 are definitely not the same as those praising Apple for breaking backward compatibility in order to move forward.
Forget Windows forever. Next time your office needs new computers, migrate to Mac.
How ya like dat?
Not really an option for small businesses, last time I spoke to a MS rep there was a minimum number of licenses that had to be purchased in order to qualify. Unless you are in the medium business range the numbers don't pan out. Of course the MS licensing has always been a moving target, hard to keep up.
They did not learn their lesson with Vista, and now they continue onwards with the same silly stance on license activation for their products, as well as making things difficult to no end, for no good reason other then to frustrate the user from ever trying to go to xp.
The problem is they do not understand windows microsoft ended AT XP! No one wants to go further with the line then XP, they should just accept this, and make things easier for those with XP, and enforce XP, secure it further, as it seems no one wants to move, even if you pay them to, or offer a free version of Vista (which they arent even doing)
By the time that XP downgrade issue comes up XP will be 9 years old, how long are they supposed to be supporting this OS? People love to bag on microsoft for security, but when they try to kill off the largest security flaw on the internet today, the ubiquity of the XP machines where (almost) everyone is running as administrator, people freak out. Windows 7 finally brings the ability to actually use windows effectively without being administrator and without getting asked for your permission to allow something every 6 seconds. This is a very Good Thing(TM).
You've had plenty of time to test for incompatibilities, and if you haven't done it yet start now; Win7 beta is freely available for you to test with right now, I think you'll find most things work fine. As a side note, if you find some legacy apps that don't play with Windows 7, a good workaround to get the abilities of windows 7 while still using that app is throwing it in a VM. Not painless but better than sticking with a dead OS.
If you truly want the internet to be a safer place then you should want XP gone as quickly as possible.
"The crows seemed to be calling his name, thought Caw."
Also, using boxen in a sentence is cause for automatic suspension of your nerd license.
Your nerd license is hereby suspended.
No, for $90/PC/year, plus the cost of the open license of Windows, you can run any Microsoft OS you want, technically all the way down to MS-DOS & Windows 3.0.
Does it only work downwards, or upwards as well?
I.e. if you bought a PC with OEM XP, would you be able to pay $90/year and run any future Microsoft OS on that when they are released?
No, it isn't a good thing. Its one more proprietary Windows "standard", as opposed to what Apple brought to the table in OpenCL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCL), a cross platform standard for doing GPU computing, that is now officially controlled by the Khronos Group (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khronos_Group) who includes such members as AMD, nVidia and intel.
OpenCL is going to be part of Snow Leopard (to be released in the fall), and I expect AMD (at least) to bring it to Linux.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Hardware manufacturers look at it like this:
People with old computers have their hardware already. They probably won't buy new stuff. We want to target the people buying new stuff. We will now devote our power to making our new stuff work with other new stuff. If someone with old stuff wants our new stuff, they can go get an old version of our stuff, or get all new stuff.
Thus: Anyone with XP doesn't need their support.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
I would add that these Windows licenses are development or testing machines, and not production boxes. Machines for use for general work don't fit under this category, similar with production Web servers that the business runs on for day to day. Similar with the machine licenses granted under a Technet subscription. They are for evaluation and testing use, not full production.
It is not the driver that cause upgrades for many users. Many people are like me. My MS Windows machines are bought for a specific applications. The machine cost a fraction of the application. The OS changes when the application requires it, not when the OS vendor wants more money. I ran Windows NT until I no longer needed it for the application I was running. For a while I had no MS machines because I was running nothing that required it. When I did, I upgraded to Windows XP. I recently acquired another machine running XP. The application did not require MS Vista, so there is no reason for IT to support MS Vista. The 2010 versions of the software, which will be installed in July, still runs on Windows XP. That means perhaps 2012 before an MS windows upgrade even becomes an issue. By then I suspect we will be seeing MS Windows Upgrade Or Else Edition.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
IIRC, the smallest VLK contract one can buy is starting out at five machines. If you want to use KMS functionality (an internal server where machines activate from instead of each activating off of MS's servers), you will need at least 25 licenses for clients or 5 for servers.
Sorry, but no. Well, sorta.
If you buy an Open License today for Windows Vista (you can only buy open licenses for the "Currently Shipping Version") with Software Assurance you have the ability to downgrade to pretty much ANY prior-released Microsoft operating system. As well, as long as you continue to pay your SA subscription, you will receive the new versions as they become available...so as long as you have an active SA subscription you will get Windows 7 licenses when they ship for "free" as part of your SA.
Now, if I recall correctly, unless you are a mass enterprise customer, you're not getting rates of $90/pc/year for SA. Normally SA is around 40% of the retail price per year...so for MS Office (which I know better), the Open License is around $600 (CAD), and SA is actually around $200/year. So if you know that theres a new version hitting within about 2 years, the SA makes sense. If you know the next version is longer than 2 years off, then the SA starts to not be money-smart.
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It all comes down to the "stick with what sucks less" mentality. Businesses are in it for business - not to pay Microsoft to debug their software for them.
If there were no God, there would be no atheists. -- G.K. Chesterton
Not exactly.
If a company has a large quantity of PC's, they aren't buying licenses on a per PC basis, but rather a site license up to a number of PCs. They also pay for support with the site license. This makes the cost somewhat variable unless they massively overpay for an unlimited support license.
The target market for this kind of service would have to be small business (the individual consumer wants to buy an OS for $400 and use his computer for 10 years, not a license to upgrade each year, but then again, most people buy a computer to get a new OS), for whom $90/pc/year would be much better than having to buy at retail every time they upgrade.
Then again, I assume that isnt whats being referred to in the article (I dont read them, I just complain).
That is a funny comment, but consider this, my shop supports 250 users, 20 servers, and there are only 3 of us doing it. One is a dept. head, so really doesn't do any support for either servers or users. So realistically there are only 2 of us doing end user support, infrastructure and server administration. And most of the days are so busy that I have ample time for "research".
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
I see what you did there.
Bullshit.
Name one (1, one, uno) consumer peripherial/motherboard/piece of hardware in the marketplace NOW that doesn't have XP driver support.
I dare you.
Those damn Developers.... makes me think Ballmer loves them or something.
lol.
DirectX 11 will be giving us all a standard language for GPU computing. No more bullshit between ATi and Nvidia.
Yup. I suppose you could say that Windows is a standard OS, none of this bullshit between Intel and AMD!
OpenCL is the standard. DirectX is a proprietary, locked-in solution.
I work in a public school district and our flavor of SOftware Assurance costs much less than $90/PC - closer to $40/PC including a healthy selection of MS software (Office 2003/2007, the various shrinkwrap applications students use, etc.).
We save almost $150-200 per PC by not buying an OS pre-installed, and our typical hardware lasts about 5 years in the hands of our students, so the cost is essentially a wash (5x$40 = $200, which is aprox. savings of buying "blank" PCs from Dell), but we always have the ability to upgrade the OS/apps at will.
We plan on skipping Vista[0] and holding on to XP through the upcoming school year, then deploy Windows 7 on enduser desktops.
[0] Except for certain tablet laptops which only have drivers for VIsta...
Ken
The software assurance only grants you, among other things, upgrade rights to the next release. I think you must be a volume license customer, too.
Personally, I don't feel the SA is worth it if you're only planning on taking advantage of the upgrade to next release rights.
Figure $90 X 5 (guessing OS releases are on 5 year average) = $450. I don't think boxed versions of the OS cost that much.
If you are a small tech shop, then instead of wrongly looking at MSDN, then gaining partner status and the "Action Pack" is a bargain. 10 seats of pretty much all Microsoft end-user / server Software to use, plus the possibility of extending beyond the 10 seats buy purchasing regular priced CALs.
Jason
If someone threw billions of ad dollars at it and sold it as the "real OS for real people" or some such nonsense, it would be. Capitalism has beaten the "you get what you pay for" mantra into too many heads. Unfortunately it'll never turn into "you get what was advertised" and as along as MS projects the image of the "only choice for grown ups who want to collaborate and get stuff done" it'll dominate and companies will continue the same path on the upgrade treadmill. Of course they'll have to lay off 20% of their IT staff to raise the cash for the next upgrade; but hey, thats why outsourcing and offshoring were invented, right?
Shift happens. Fire it up.
Are you sure? I think its (2*the cost of the license with no discounts)+(2*the cost of the license with no discounts).
Or was it just 4*the cost of the license with no discounts? I can never remember.
600 users 250 machines and printers, and I maintain the lot in 28 hours a week, 4 days at
7 hours a day. Including replacing 33% of machines each year.
And I spend more than half my day on Slashdot.
No network downtime in 5 years, all Windows XP/2003 server.
3 people for 250 users, luxury!
OpenCL isn't supported (in actuality) by Nvidia yet, unfortunately.
OpenCL would be the way to go, but I simply don't trust Nvidia and ATi (especially Nvidia) to both get true, full, interchangeable support going.
DirectX 11 would be a much more useful target in actuality, since the hardware will support DX11 fully (thank you gamers), and the learning curve for programming using DX11 is much lower than an all-new API.
AMD (ATi) jumped on the OpenCL bandwagon pretty quickly after realizing they weren't getting shit done with Stream (while Nvidia WAS getting software out with CUDA and moneyhats).
OpenCL would be the way to go ideally, sure, for many reasons. But I simply think that in actuality DX11 will win out and will be easier (in terms of availability of resources and programmers), at least in the short term.
Of course, in an ideal world, we'd have scientists generalizing tasks and engineers rigging up FPGAs and then true hardware solutions being fabbed out.
Or you could ditch bribing MicroSoft...
With the amount of money you could shell out to them annually to run old software, you could do many things:
Rewrite (!) that software; most certainly something like Python will last longer than ActiveX's life cycle. Up-front, the cost is a little high, but this has the added benefit of security, because you're not running on an OS that is vulnerable to old attacks.
Run a VM system (not too hard to do; and it's cheaper still with the free player versions) so you can run it anyways, relatively independent of the host hardware. This has mixed benefits, but it works when the machine allows it to work.
Or you could stay with the hardware you have... and only upgrade slowly. This requires a network model that is isolated, so that those older systems can stay virus free. This has a cost of its own.
MS-DOS is a museum piece, Windows 98 is a rarity, and eventually XP will fall into the same cracks; and they were/are all popular for their time. Bribing MS makes a kind of sense, and yes, the business model could work... but you're setting yourself up to fall behind the times.
Try finding parts for old MCI architectures, even if you can find a technician with all of the software to maintain it. Eventually, the cost of simply keeping those machines running becomes extravagant compared to the cost of simply retooling.
There are no perfect answers, only the right questions. More questions at http://foresightandhindsight.blogspot.com/
Standard as in actually existing and being used and such.
Call me when Nvidia ACTUALLY supports OpenCL, and when there are a bunch of programmers who know it (as many as DirectX).
OpenCL would be better, sure, but I simply don't see the true support from Nvidia coming for a while. Having to deal with hardware differences is not what you want to be doing. (Then again, I wouldn't buy Nvidia parts for serious work, even if they were much cheaper, and I'd vehemently tell anyone managing the budget that those parts were a liability.)
I meant in terms of getting some GPUs that let you run those fancy new GPU computing APIs.
Stream (dead) / CUDA / OpenCL / DirectX 11
Everyone should support OpenCL eventually, but I don't trust Nvidia to actually do it. Everyone and their dog will support DX11 fully, and there are a ton of people who know DX already. I expect DX11 to win out in the short term, with consumer apps (media editing/compression mainly) staying with DX11 and research apps eventually flowing over to OpenCL and booming in number.
The performance gained by running on the GPU instead of (or in addition to) the GPU are orders of magnitude.
In the end, it translates into getting shit done much faster. Which in the end when all costs are factored in often translates into money saved (but not always).
Uh, cash to burn? Maybe. But the fact that they're not burning it is one of the reasons they're at the top of the industry.
Homer: [reading Internet for Dummies: Remedial Edition] Oh, they have the Internet on computers now.
Marge: Homer, Bill Gates is here.
Homer: Bill Gates? Billionaire computer nerd Bill Gates? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Get out of sight, Marge. I don't want this to look like a two-bit operation.
Bill Gates: Mr. Simpson?
Homer: You don't look so rich.
Bill Gates: Don't let the haircut fool you. I'm exceedingly wealthy.
Homer: [sotto voce] Get a load of the bowl job, Marge.
Bill Gates: Your Internet ad was brought to my attention but I can't figure out what, if anything, CompuGlobalHyperMegaNet does. So, rather than risk competing with you, I've decided simply to buy you out.
Homer: [softly] This is it, Marge. I poured my heart and soul into this business and now it's finally paying off. We're rich! Richer than astronauts!
Marge: [softly] Homer, quiet! You'll queer the deal.
Homer: Oh, right. [out loud] I reluctantly accept your proposal.
Bill Gates: Well, everyone always does. Buy him out, boys.
(assistants begin breaking things on Homer's dining table-turned-office)
Homer: Hey, what the hell's going on?
Bill Gates: Oh, I didn't get rich by writing a lot of checks. [cackles loudly]
What if it was in quotes?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The more I ahve thought about, the more I thing the current liscensing scheme is NOT by design.
Well an accountants design, but not by abny sane software or business design.
How much is spent supporting, marketing, boxing, and advertising multiple version of the same product?
Charge 100 bucks, one version save your self the support and maintenance nightmare, and spin it as a way your thinking about the customers.
If they want to sell office again, then need to get every up to Win 7.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You're only hurting yourself!
works as in 640x480x256 only, no 32 bit disk access, no network drivers, no sound, max about 64-512 ram?
...last I heard it was the cost of the license with no discounts + (3*the cost of the license with no discounts) per machine...
Wouldn't that just be 4 * (The cost of one license)?
Two desktops (one is 8 year old), two laptops (one is a Thinkpad T21), two netbooks in our house.
I think charging almost 100 bucks per computer sounds a little insane.
I
This "Assurance" is bullshit. XP WILL die eventually, and it will be due to the hardware vendors not writing drivers anymore, not because Microsoft has "assured" you by taking your money. It's already getting difficult to find XP driver support for new hardware out there TODAY, much less 12 - 24 months from now when businesses will still be looking to run XP.
Sounds to me like the best solution there in 3 years, where according to Murphy our desktop machines will be 4x 8 core CPUs with 2gb vram, 24gb system ram sitting on 4-5 TB of storage space in one drive bay... The best method to stick with our current software is to run a stripped down Linux install who's only job is to run a VMware (or similar technology) hypervisor with 64 windows xp machines running within it.
In virtual machines, drivers use hardware, not the other way around. There is right now virtual hardware with XP drivers. That virtual hardware API *NEVER* has to change, thus the driver already made for XP long ago will still work.
It's going to be next to impossible to morally argue pirating XP after microsoft has refused to take our money for it for years despite offering payment.
If it wasn't for their license scheme making this prohibitively unfordable, would have been an ideal setup Now, and we have had the technology for some time, with only Microsofts greed being in the way.
But you are correct for the long term. XP will die off eventually, because something better will take its place. With enough time passing, backwards compatibility will be less and less important. It is guaranteed to happen, only the when is in question.
But we will have no problems even a decade from now, let alone the 12 - 24 months you imply.
This is complete BS.
Look at the slide (in TFA!) - its for OEM licenses - not a Volume Business licenses (with Software Assurance). If you have a proper volume license (like most mid-sized and larger businesses do) you can use any 32bit OS.
If you're a *HOME* user, or a business using very small number of PCs (and hence volume licensing is inappropriate), this may affect you.
Either the poster (like the article author) doesn't have a clue, or is trolling for the 90% of posters who haven't used Windows since '95 but don't pause to complain about how much their 2009 Linux is so much better.
actually this is a really poorly written article full of gross errors.
Volume Licensing(VL) is not the same as Software Assurance (SA).
OEM licenses die with a machine. VLs can be moved and reused as long as the new machine came with an OEM license. Think of VLs as a way to upgrade a limited and discounted OEM license.
VL customers can definitely use XP. Most enterprises have VL agreements in place. Those that don't should probably sack their IT department or switch to Linux.
Software Assurance which may or may not be included with a specific VL plan has numerous benefits including getting new versions of the software without paying anything extra i.e. you buy Vista VLs now with SA; when Win7 comes out, you get the upgrade to Win7 at no cost.
VLs can be outright purchases paid in full or you can "lease" the software as a subscription. Subscriptions are advantageous as you do not pay the full price of the software and it provides your IT and Finance department a consistent way to account for IT costs (think operational expenses vs. capital expenses).
Finally it a misconception that VLs are only good for large customers. VLs can be purchased for organizations with as little as 5 computers.
Comprehensive info on VL is here:
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/default.aspx#tab_2
Here is a link to small business information:
http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/buy/software/buy-software.aspx#waystobuy
Here is a link outlining Software Assurance Benefits (download the SA benefits chart PDF):
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/software-assurance/default.aspx#tab_2
Here is a fine print detail for specific technology licensing.
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/about-licensing/volume-licensing-briefs.aspx
My suggestion is you consider Microsoft's Open agreements.
If you have any questions, email me via my blog:
http://blogs.technet.com/tarpara
this is not true. Volume licensing can be done with as few as 5 machine. See my earlier slashdot comment.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1271001&cid=28356409
For a lot of companies it doesnt make sense at all.
It's 2009 and most companies are still using Office 2003 with no intention of moving to 2007. SA for 6 years @ $200 per year = $1200 of complete waste.
Same for Windows. You get an XP Pro license for $200, then SA for 6 years @ $80 per year.
Then there's all the CALs you need. CALs for exchange, for Forefront, for Sharepoint, Office communicator, AD, Terminal Services..... Standard CALs, Enterprise CALs...
It's enough to drive you insane lol
The program in question is software assurance, and the web page I just linked you to will indeed include details about where to go to get it.
Bear in mind there's some dumb rules about minimum seats and crap that might make it uneconomical for you.
600 users 250 machines and printers, and I maintain the lot in 28 hours a week, 4 days at 7 hours a day. Including replacing 33% of machines each year.
And I spend more than half my day on Slashdot.
No network downtime in 5 years, all Windows XP/2003 server.
3 people for 250 users, luxury!
First of all, you're mad :)
:) ). We haven't been able to migrate away from Windows 2000 on the server side yet, as our core app doesn't run on 2008 :(
Second, where I'm currently working is also a Windows shop, we have 2 people for 110 users, and one of them has half-time management duties (writing reports and the such
I used to be alone for a 60-person branch at my prior job as sysadmin (moved into development a couple years ago), and it was also a Windows shop.
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
You have to either authenticate or crack your XP install after installation, or use a pirated 'corporate' serial. If you authenticate, you have to hit MS's servers. If they unplug the XP authentication servers, only pirates and corporations will be able to (re)install XP.
Ask Me About... The 80's!
all you need to do is buy a minimum of a thousand copies...
Ask Me About... The 80's!
the cost of the license with no discounts + (3*the cost of the license with no discounts)
Pardon me, but isn't that just 4x?
heh, captcha is travesty ;)
It's just retarded marketing people being retarded.
It's just annoying marketing people being annoying.
It's just marketing people destroying the market.
Through vendor lock-in.
No. Win31x has drivers available for up to the TNT2 M64 video card, Intel i8x0 chipset, etc. Basically, if the hardware is older then Windows 2000, you can usually find Win31x drivers for hardware. Sound can be accomplished with soundblaster 16 emulation, (still available for most modern soundcards). Even the SoundBlaster Audigy 5.1 has Win31x drivers available. The 512MB limit for RAM can be worked around by replacing hymen.sys from a Win9x build, and putting it into the Win31x build. Of course, it only will work in 386 Enhanced mode if you take that route. You can get LFN support if you install it on DOS 7.1 out of Win98SE, or the modern FreeDOS. Win31x is still a very capable OS, and on modern hardware, it takes only a few seconds for it to boot up and be ready to use. (yes, even if you have installed Calmira). But why run Win31x, when you can run NT351 SP5? You can even install MS Office 97 SR-1 on NT351, and NewShell Beta 2 will give you the NT4 interface.
Get your free Dropbox account with 2 GB Free storage!
Why the fuck would you pay for the same OS $90 per year? Are you a moron?
Windows is a major headache :)
JMule user : http://www.jmule.org
Who cares! whine complain "act sympathetic for BIG businesses" who don't want to upgrade. It is 2009, If you had a business writing software, I think/know it would become difficult to support something you wrote 7 years ago. IMO Windows 7 is a redeemer for certain. As I write this from my Macbook!
Why raise the price.
I am sure all these businesses who are fighting tooth and nail not to lay off any more workers would love to waste more money for an OS that does the same things as XP for more money.
http://saveie6.com/
I found office 2007 annoying for the first month but if you do the shortcuts you never even have to use the mouse.
They are a little different but when you hit the "alt" key the ribbon will show the numbers and letters for keyboard combos. You can do more than the shortcuts with 2003 without ever having to use a mouse.
This and the vista feature of just hitting the windows key and then typing rather than scrolling and clicking for programs is sweet too.
The only problem is you need to work differently and this is an issue when the boss wants everything done a week ago.
http://saveie6.com/
The delay for most orgs will be in doing app compat testing, there are ways to compress this using any or many of the very good products out there. Even Gartner recommends not waiting for SP1 for Windows 7 http://mediaproducts.gartner.com/reprints/microsoft/vol5/article2/article2.html
Oops... I'm very sorry about the inaccuracy above. Of course what I fiddled with was not AdBlockPlus but NoScript.
When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Rel
I wouldn't be surprised if (at least in significant part) this is to push early sales of Windows 7 licenses. Kind of funny - leverage the reluctance to leave the old(est) OS for fear of ending up with the old(er) OS to make sales of your new OS go up.
I can see why an XP shop would go ahead and get Windows 7 licenses for new machines ASAP so they could downgrade them to XP rather than being stuck with a heterogeneous (XP and Vista) configuration and having to support two OSes.
Even if SP1 comes first, that will be at least a year after Windows 7 is released (as you predicted). Of course, if enough big customers complain when the deadline is looming, they'll probably extend it again.
TO START
PRESS ANY KEY
Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...
There are several standard types of volume licensing:
Open License and Select License are the two most popular licenses, and they are both perpetual, so yes the keys will continue to work under them.
Don't know where you buy your corporate desktops, but we get ours from HP and Dell, and we get them bare. We are only a small to medium business, with 150 employees, and we buy 3 - 5 desktops a month on average, but we have no problems buying desktops without an OS and using volume licensed installs on them.
As usual, Microsoft finds a way to rip of its customers, again and again and again.... The amazing thing is, people still keep falling for it!!
Much Less!
Go to auctions and buy an entire computer, complete with XP license sticker on a big brand, say Dell for under 30 bucks. Recovery disks are obtainable.
Else buy your licences off Ebay in Germany. Doctrine of First sale applies there.
Yes, it is true. £40 in the UK. Talk to a Microsoft reseller. You still need to buy a PC with the windows tax, and you have to do every PC in the company. I find it cheaper just to get windows with the PC. They will also do the same for office, which casts about the same per year, rather than a one of OEM cost.
Microsoft licensing can be a bit tricky at the server level, what with CALs and server licenses that both have different rules depending on which server software you're talking about, but client licensing is pretty straightforward.
There's two components you need to worry about. The first one is the OS license; the other one is Software Assurance. If you buy a computer with an OS, it's already licensed, so you don't have to worry about buying a new one. If you buy the machine bare, you need to purchase an OS license for it. Now, in both cases, the license is only for that version of the operating system and its patches/service packs. That's where Software Assurance comes in. By paying a yearly fee, you get a variety of benefits (web-based training, phone support incidents, home use rights, etc.) as well as upgrade and downgrade rights. If you have SA for Windows Client, you can upgrade to Windows 7 when it comes out, or downgrade to Windows 95 if you have to for some dumb legacy app. I can't tell you if $90/year/license is correct, because it depends on your volume license agreement.
As for VL itself, you can start with Open at 5 licenses. I'd highly recommend CDW as a license partner; they're easy to talk to and quite helpful.
The Freelance Wizard
That's actually against the terms of every MS enterprise agreement I've ever heard of or seen. Need an OEM license to roll in to the EA or else you're invalid, even if you true it up. Not saying it's not true, just that I've never seen it.
Not sure I agree with you regarding life-cycles. IE6 will be maintained from 2001 through to 2014 by Microsoft on Windows XP. 13 years of stability and backwards compatibility for the cost of a Windows license.
I've had a quick flick through the Python history, they are currently maintaining what appears to be 2 branches, 2.6 and 3. And are making major releases (eg: 2.2,2.4,2.6 etc.)at 2 year intervals, they seem to break backwards compatibility in a handful of small ways on each release.
Yes you can run in a VM if you wish, but unless you've fully network isolated it, then you've not really gained any security advantage.
Jason
While Microsoft would LOVE to have enforced this, and I'm sure they would have made a lot of money, they would piss off so many companies, it's not even funny. Take my company for example. We have 2500 computers. We only use OEM licensing for Windows. We would have had to probably bought ~500 licenses to cover us till we could migrate. 500*$300+500*(90) = $195000 to cover us for that ONE year of lack of overlap. Sure, MS makes off good, but once we are pissed off, my company might look at using Open Office instead of MS Office. 2500*$300 = $750000 to fully license office for my company.
I have no idea what agreements you have seen, but if you purchase a Microsoft operating system on either Select or Open standard agreement (ie, any agreement that does not require negotiation, so any agreement a typical MS rep will sign you up to) then thats your full license right there, no mention of requiring an OEM install in none of the 4 separate agreements I have infront of me.
Well that how is was described to me. You pay for the license + 3*license as fine.
And you will miss out DX10 functionality required to do graphics processing.
New Economic Perspectives
...they'd be courting disaster. As in dead release, dead revenues for the next five years, or dead company. The idea that this vendor is magically immune to customer satisfaction is a notion without a future. Great present, but lousy future.
I used to know a vendor who could provide ms software in the only right way to acquire it, but sadly pirate bay was just sold so your S.O.L.