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Microsoft Buys 666,000 IP Addresses
RabidMonkey writes "Microsoft has managed to purchase 666,624 IP addresses from the bankrupt Canadian company Nortel for $7.5 million. This works out to $11.25/ip. An exact list of blocks isn't available yet. There has been a lot of discussion on NANOG about whether this allowed or not, and what the implications to the dwindling IPv4 pool may be. Is this the first of many such moves as IPv4 address space has run out? Will ARIN step in and block the sale/transfer? How long will such measures drag out the eventual necessity of IPv6?"
IPv6 around the corner? It's been around the corner for what now, a decade? Do you see anyone use it? I don't. I'm not even certain most ISPs would route it correctly.
What can MS do with all those IP addresses? Well, it looks kinda useless at a first glance, doesn't it? Let's take a look.
MS has a sizable market share on the desktop. One could easily say they have a de facto monopoly in most companies on the desktop. Now all they have to do is to make sure that their desktop product does not really work well with IPv6. Given that there are many "Windows administrators" in companies that don't even know how to calculate v4 netmasks, all it takes is to make the v6 config tool really, really crappy so it actually takes an admin who knows what he's doing and I'd wager at least 40% of the people currently claiming an "admin" status are out of their league.
Now MS will sell your ISP a v4 IP range for the low cost of 30 bucks an address. Will your company rather buy a C-Class net or train their admin? I predict, most would rather buy an A-Class net before they spend a dime on training or hiring someone with the relevant skill.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.