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CEO of TuCloud Dares Microsoft To Sue His New Company
Fluffeh writes "Word from Ars Technica is that OnLive, a service provider that seems to totally flout Microsoft licensing and offers iPad users a Microsoft Desktop for free (or a beefier one for $5) isn't being sued by Microsoft, as this blog quotes: 'We are actively engaged with OnLive with the hope of bringing them into a properly licensed scenario.' The people who are angry include Guise Bule, CEO of tuCloud. He accuses Microsoft of playing favorites with OnLive — whose CEO is a former Microsoft executive — while regularly auditing license compliance for companies like tuCloud that provide legitimate virtual desktop services. Bule is so mad that he says he is forming an entirely new company called DesktopsOnDemand to provide a service identical to OnLive's, complete with licensing violations, and dare Microsoft to take him to court. Bule hopes to force Microsoft into lifting restrictions on virtual desktop licensing that he says inhibit growth in the virtual desktop industry, and seem to apply to everyone except OnLive."
One of the restrictions applied to licensed remote desktop providers is that each user must have his own dedicated machine (pretty onerous in the days of 16+ core servers costing a mere grand or two).
What could possibly go wrong?
There's a spot in User Info for World of Warcraft account names? Really?
Sounds more like a dig for free marketing. "Hey people! Big nasty Microsoft is suing us because we're a wholesome little company! You should totally give us your business!"
Totally not gonna backfire...
Slashdot: Where opinions are just opinions until you have mod points.
The reason OnLive gets a pass is because OnLive is a rapidly growing business dominating a completely different market (virtualized gaming) run by a veteran player in the industry, while toCloud is a rinky-dink outfit that has no real prospects for large growth that has to keep telling the world how they are "Virtual Desktop Superheroes" because its so easy to forget.
"His name was James Damore."
Let OnLive develop the tech and customer base, then buy it and integrate it into XBOX/Windows Live.
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish 101.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
That's one way to look at it. The other is that Microsoft's favouritism has allowed OnLive to grow rapidly and dominate a complete market, while tuCloud has been forced into being a rinky-dink outfit with no real prospects due to Microsoft's abuse of their OS monopoly.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
No, you aren't completely informed. No generally available MS license currently allows for the virtualised provision of Windows 7 as a hosted service - only the Server 2008 licenses allow virtualised service provision. He could do what he wants with the right Windows Server license, but he can't offer a virtualised Win 7 instance in the same manner.
RTFM, this guy is following the rules, to the letter. That means he can only offer the service to people that already pay monster money to Microsoft (and THEN they have to pay him too)
in short his company is ALREADY a customer playing by the established rules (and being audited) trying to ask permission to add more features. While the OnLive people should be raided by the BSA marshals by now... they're getting "talked to" about licensing violations that would get a proper business' doors locked because they've already whipped up huge business in the press.
When Microsoft trots out "piracy" numbers, licensing technicalities like this are EXACTLY what they are going after nowdays. If their "war on piracy" was REAL they'd be sending the BSA with Federal Marshals to lock up OnLive. If there is some new rule that OnLive is getting, why shouldn't the people that ALREADY PAY to have the same feature get the new rules too? Microsoft is still a monopoly and giving new terms to somebody that's not properly paying shouldn't be allowed... as they are interfering with their PAYING customer's business by allowing this.
...rely on the good will of Microsoft's lawyers. That's about as smart as relying on the soundness of their testing. Legal bills will sink them no matter the right or wrong.
while regularly auditing license compliance for companies like tuCloud that provide legitimate virtual desktop services.
If you own a volume license, yes, they can do that, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.
There is no such thing as a volume license for Windows -- there's enterprise agreements, and you get a volume license key, but that key is only valid if used to replace the OEM key that comes with new hardware. (I.E., its provided to EA customers so you can push out desktop images to your hardware, but you can only do so to hardware that *came* with an OEM license. There's no concept of a "new" VLK license.)
The *only* legal option companies like this have are getting an OEM distribution license (which Microsoft doesn't do for non-hardware vendors), or use full retail copies. There's nothing MS can do to prevent OnLive from using full retail copies, but at $200ish a VM, the cost to the end user goes up. And what you can't do is use guest accounts and published applications from the cloud, because you don't have CALs for those users.
There are routes that companies can do to make it work, but not routes that somehow magically bypass the cost of buying Windows.
(And, FWIW, I am completely informed here -- I've gone through this process for similar services before.)
"However, unlike with Office, Windows licensing has been heavily scrutinized ever since the Consent Decree Microsoft signed with the Department of Justice, so it just isn’t possible for Microsoft to cut special deals without getting into legal hot water."
According to this article over at ExtremeTech, Microsoft isn't allowed to have separate licensing deals for Windows.
http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/121769-is-onlive-pirating-windows-and-what-will-it-cost-them
DesktopsOnDemand will be a different corporate entity. In otherwords MS can sue DesktopsOnDemand into the ground and tuCloud will be unscathed. The guy is setting up another company that CAN go down in flames and just be scrapped if needed. As someone who's been harrassed by MS in the past I have to say I love this idea and I find the whole thing intensely entertaining.
And again, that doesn't contradict what I have said - VDA requires you to issue a license to a given device, it doesnt allow you to swap licenses around between devices ad hoc. That means you cannot provision a virtualised Windows 7 license for a hosted service, in the way that this guy wants - he would have to have one Win 7 license associated with each end user device.
Again, there is no current license which allows you to sell a virtualised Win 7 hosted service.
The fact that there would be need for a "licensing specialist" speaks volumes about the complexity of navigating the Microsoft licensing system. I think the major problem that MS is trying to stop is from somebody offering the same functionality to desktop users. Imagine a system where Mac and Linux users wouldn't have to buy a Windows license to access a full windows desktop. This could make switching to Mac (or Linux) a lot easier for most people. MS would sell a lot less licenses if a single license could be time-shared between 20 or 30 users
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
A single license can be time shared between 20 or 30 users, it just has to be on its own machine.
I've done the whole MS licensing dance, as part of a budget where I was responsible for $1.5million of buying, and to be fair MS licensing is fine in 99% of cases, but it's that other 1% which you need help for. And this falls into that 1%, because neither OnLive nor this guy want to do what most other businesses want to do.
The fact that there would be need for a "licensing specialist" speaks volumes about the complexity of navigating the Microsoft licensing system.
I was researching Sharepoint a couple years ago. In Microsoft's FAQ for it, where I thought I'd find lots of technical Q&As, the section on licensing was longer than all other sections combined.
A software product/service that requires a lawyer more than a technical person to evaluate? Screw it.
Gifts above a certain value are taxable. I'm not sure if that counts for gifts between companies. The story about Inida taxing "angel funding" is similar to this, and if one company is creating an uneven playing field by giving gifts to another company then that is not desirable in a free market. It could even come under antitrust, if they are doing this to increase Windows' market share in the mobile virtual desktop space.
Exactly, the major problems are that the VDA license is *per device* instead of per user, that the license is only available to volume license customers, and that MS has told hosting providers that they must maintain separate physical servers and *storage* for each customer. Almost every other piece of MS software is available to service providers under reasonable rental terms so that they can provide their customers a convenient service, it's only the desktop license where MS has repeatedly refused to offer terms that their end users and service provider partners find reasonable.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Actually I don't think any licence is ever simple for anyone except lawyers, and sometimes is still only an interpretation.
My company was trying to determine if we could use the free version of Google Maps, but the licence didn't make it clear. In the licence Google says not to contact them about the agreement, but consult a lawyer.
"For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert"