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Microsoft Steeply Raising Enterprise Licensing Fees
hypnosec writes "Microsoft is trying to make up for below expected earnings following Windows 8's and Surface RT's lack luster adoption rates by increasing the prices of its products between 8 and 400 per cent. Trying to make more out of its enterprise customers who are tied under its Software Assurance payment model, Microsoft has increased user CALs pricing 15 per cent; SharePoint 2013 pricing by 38 per cent; Lync Server 2013 pricing by 400 per cent; and Project 2013 Server CAL by 21 per cent."
Microsoft method: Milk them for every cent.
Linux method: Free is free. Nobody can hold a gun to your head under the GPL.
corporations are more responsive than ever to finding and deploying alternatives to Microsoft software. let's hope this spurs more open source development.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
For Ballmer to keep his job, Microsoft needs to make a profit. Last quarter it made a loss, Ballmers excuse was a one-time write off. However Windows 8 is flopping, Surface is failing, and he needs to show a profit.
So he's massively ramping up the prices for the locked in customers, in the long term, they'll move away from Microsoft products, but in the short and medium term, they'll have to bend over and take it.
After Ballmer has run the company for 10 years and it's been in decline, you have to realize that astroturfers cannot save him, he needs to go. No more excuses.
I see: so if demand goes down, price goes up?
Good luck with that ...
It does a number of things, some of them vaguely useful, but none as well as other stand-alone tools, it's awkward as hell, and people hate using it.
Raise the price on it and even some of the most MS-centric IT shops will go "Fine, we'll just set up an internal Apache server and Confluence instead."
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
I'm a Microsoft guy through and through, when it comes to the enterprise. These licensing costs are just getting really difficult to justify. I know there's some open source replacement available, but it's not all very coherently tied together the way MS stuff is. I'd love to be able to move away though.
in the 80s various flavors of UNIX locked their customers' data in expensive licensing deals.
then one day, windows NT came out and showed a cheaper way. around the same time Linux also came but only a few saw Windows as just another trap.
Now we have a prophecy realized.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Microsoft has increased user CALs pricing 15 per cent; SharePoint 2013 pricing by 38 per cent; Lync Server 2013 pricing by 400 per cent; and Project 2013 Server CAL by 21 per cent."
Allow me to translate, for Australian license partners,
Microsoft has increased user CALs pricing 45 per cent; SharePoint 2013 pricing by 114 per cent; Lync Server 2013 pricing by 1200 per cent; and Project 2013 Server CAL by 63 per cent."
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
These idiots who didn't see it coming from miles away deserve to be squeezed by these assholes.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Not only OEM's but Enterprises as well and basically all Microsoft shops. You want Windows 7? You have to buy 8 with Software Assurance. You want Windows XP? You have to buy 8 with Software Assurance. You want Windows Server? You get 2 licenses of Windows 8 for their VirtualPC software. You want to build your own computer? Here's 8. You want to renew your contract for SA for 10,000 computers, they're now all eligible to run 8, also $1M please.
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Both have only been out for about a month. It's too early to really tell how either of them are doing. It also takes time to make decisions about pricing.
Indeed. Short term, their customers will probably pay; long term, they'll quietly move away.
The people at MS will probably applaud the revenue increase, thinking to themselves "Why didn't we do this sooner?"
In a few years, they will be thinking instead "Ah, that's why we shouldn't have done that."
Ballmer is really dropping the ball here. All he needs to do now is announce that MS is getting out of the software business to pursue next year's Big Thing (the micro-tablet market), and MS will officially be done. It will rank up there with HP's announcement that they were considering selling off their hardware division, and will have business majors everywhere groan at the memory of it.
I am John Hurt.
OSs are irrelevant. Cross platform everything is the bright future. There is no place for companies like Microsoft or their vendor lock-in strategies. They signed their own death warrant, it's only a matter of time now.
We've been using Alfresco's community edition. It has AD integration and does an okay job with Sharepoint protocols.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
There are all sorts of Wiki software available. Don't get me wrong. I am MicroSlut, just not logged in. I run SharePoint and wouldn't run anything else. Easy to use calendars, sites for each department, syncing with Outlook calendars, syncing with Outlook address books, exporting to excel, edit in spreadsheet mode, granular permissions control via active directory, integration with Dynamics, and, last but not least, using query files. Hell, my support ticket call center is on SharePoint. Authorized management can log in and see all support tickets, resolutions, reoccurring issues, top issues, and how many calls and how long they took per day to the beginning of the database. All this took me minutes to set up and I can mod it on the fly (add new fields and categories while on a support call). But this is Slashdot. That's why I asked what he needed it for. If he needs a simple Wiki, why use any license at all? Just go FOSS. When you need software, you don't Google "SharePoint alternatives", you search for what you need to do. Again, What does he need SharePoint for in the first place? I use it because I am there to administer it. If I wasn't available, it might be more expensive that other software (think upgrades and customization). I am a Microsoft shill, advocate, whore, whatever you want to call me (slut), but I am first a computer geek. Just because I prefer Microsoft software doesn't meant it is right for everyone else. I also run CentOS, just like everyone else :). I also doubt any small business owner could afford to pay my salary, so I doubt he has anyone who could easily setup SharePoint in such a short time, much less administer it (think SQL full vs. SQL Express). So I ask again... What does a small business owner need SharePoint for? Answer me that and I will supply a long list of alternatives, such as the shitload of services Google offers for free.
i'd be the last to defend ballmer, but that quarterly (4/12 to 6/12) "loss" was due to writing down the $6+ billion acquisition of aquantive.... which was stupidly bought (at a grossly overvalued price) while uncle bill was still in charge.
without the writedown on the books, they would have made MORE than during the same quarter the year prior.
First I have to comment on the huge number of at least acceptable comments above that were modded down to 0. Very odd, but it seems that the pro MS down modders ran out of karma points after the first few dozen anti MS posts.
.net) was a great way to make quick windows applications and for a while it got better and better. Then Visual Studio made Windows C++ programming way easier than that Borland C++ ever did (OWL was crap). These were products made to make my life better and they did. The impression I had of MS in the past was some hot shit programmers crowded around chalkboards, terminals, and doing the cool. Now my impression is that the programers are all third rate and completely beaten down by layer upon layer upon layer of useless middle and sort of upper middle managers. Now the only goal at MS seems to get a little revenue goose to impress their shareholders for 5 minutes. I doubt they will be as impressed in 5 years.
I have said it before: MS is doing nothing to bring me back. I like MySQL better than SQL, Apache better than IIS, CentOS command line better than Server, Mac OS X better than any windows. I haven't used Visual Studio in long enough that I can't compare it to XCode. On my Mac I can run all my critical commercial software plus it mostly reacts like Linux so another strike against MS. I use my xbox for gaming and it smells like Linux might become a force in gaming (to be seen). I think that I am a pretty typical geek in that I have an xbox as my only MS product. Now most corporate types are on Windows but that is often because they have WidgetManager 2000 running on all their XP systems. I have even seen corporations that have to play all kinds of games to buy new machines and get XP onto them legally so that their old crap keeps working. Few of these companies have managed to make the Linux desktop transition for the first reason of legacy software but for the second reason of MS Office. I don't personally use it but in a corporate environment OpenOffice just doesn't cut it. But the moment some group gets together and ports the OpenOffice code to C++ awesomeness will happen. My favorite word program for Mac is Bean. It is C++ and rocket fast. It doesn't do much but that is a feature.
So looking at Microsoft as a tech professional I would never in a zillion years recommend that a new corporate system be based in the MS world and I suspect that there is a horde of non MS people making the same consistent recommendations to various companies. Many of these companies don't change because of inertia but one of the things that slows down an object moving by inertia is friction and this price increase will add to the MS friction. I doubt that there will be a huge wave of people vomiting out MS from their company due to this smallish increase. What there will be is a slight increase in the trend of people using non MS products. In the corporate world it is usually the negative trends that get you. People didn't stop using film overnight but Kodak couldn't get ahead of the trend and Kodak basically invented the digital point and shoot.
I don't hate MS but it gives me zero reason to love it yet I remember the days when I did. Visual Basic (before
Microsoft are fucking idiots. Every enterprise customer they have already wants to get away from them, but the cost of migration is just too steep. What they did here was change that... even if the new rates still keep the cost bellow some threshold that would make it easier to migrate to something else, what they've really done is say to all their customers "We will price gouge you in the middle of a recession" and you can bet every IS/IT department in the country is going to be having meetings regarding just how quickly it'll really take to get out from under the chains of .NET
The android desktop OS is coming... we all know it. It'll be free and Google will have hordes of experts ready to fly out to your site and help you migrate... then what Microsoft?
As massive licence buyers are heavily negotiating the official prices, we won't get a Linux landslide... do not expect those prices to be applied to governments or big companies.
Stupidity is the root of all evil.
That would not explain the difference in price rises (8-400%).
Enterprise is MS cash cow and cows are milked and cows that protest to loudly are killed for fun, meat and an example to other cows.
The farmer does not care what the cow thinks of him, the opinion of cattle is worthless. Their enterprise customer have shown over decades to be completely incapable of independent thought so why should they change now? Oh, this price increase is the straw that broke the camels back? Breaking a back only works in animals that have a back bone. Cattle does not. The reason you can overwork donkeys and cows and dogs is because they are dumb animals that are easily domesticated. A smart animal would resist long before you overload it. Enterprise customers have not resisted. In fact, they resist every which way they can to any attempt to set themselves free or at least not be under complete and total control of their Microsoft master. Just go ahead, ask for a Linux desktop at a large Enterprise business like say Shell just to come up with a name. Can't be done. These slaves don't just accept the whip, they buy it for their master, oil it so it gives optimal whipping power and turn in anyone who tries to set them free or introduce laws trying to limit the amount of whipping that can be done.
And you think these Enterprise customers can be alienated? Same with the OEM's. They could have EASILY done a Linux machine by now. They didn't. And nothing MS will do will change that. They are OEM's, not Apple or a (the old) Nokia, they sell cheap clones with a generic OS and make their money from crapware. They don't have the willpower, brains, imagination to do anything else. Oh they might protest a bit, just like a cow might kick and kill a farmer but just as the cow will then just stand there and wait to be killed, the OEM's will throw a hissy fit and then assume the position again to be shafted by their beloved master.
Ballmer is a lot of things but one thing he really is, is a good sales manager. He knows just how much to squeeze the market for. And don't worry, any Enterprise that balks about a 400% price increase will get a special discount, just for them of say a 10% discount, now ain't you a special little cow! Any MS rep gives their big customers massive discounts. Just all big Enterprises give their loyal customers a big discount and NONE of them ever figure out that if THEY only give discounts that are less then the previous price increase, someone else might do the same to them.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Microsoft has built a towering edifice of customer lock-in, terrible to behold. Eventually, in the fullness of time, the edifice will fall. We may be seeing the start of that process.
We saw this coming and bought 100% of our replacement servers and OSes and CALs and Exchange and Exchange CALs on Nov 30th. We're migrating from 4 older servers down to 2 so this just made up speed up and buy em at the last second instead of waiting 2 more weeks. Take that, Microsoft.
Also, others' claims above aren't far off about companies actually switching. We NEED certain MS-only enterprise apps but at $453 a piece for Office Pro Plus OLP, guess who's testing Libre Office Base with our Access databases this week.