What's up with Microsoft's new Software Assurance licensing policy? I hear a lot of talk about extremes, on one hand how it's robbing corporate America at gunpoint, on the other hand how it's really just a policy change and not going to have a major financial impact. But has anyone's company actually sat down and calculated what financial impact it's going to have on their company, if any? I would be interested in hearing if anyone has any hard facts and figures.
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Microsoft's new licensing policy
- Thread starter DaveStL
- Start date
As far as I can see...
If Win XP costs £100 the upgrade will cost you approx £60.
With the new deal, to qualify for the upgrade you will pay £29 pa to MS on a 2-3 year deal.
This means that if no upgrades come out in that time, then you have wasted your money, but if 5 come out then you get a good deal on all of them.
It seems to me that if windows or another MS product is upgraded about every two years, you will be paying £58 for the priviledge of saving £40.
Please someone tell me I am missing something.
If Win XP costs £100 the upgrade will cost you approx £60.
With the new deal, to qualify for the upgrade you will pay £29 pa to MS on a 2-3 year deal.
This means that if no upgrades come out in that time, then you have wasted your money, but if 5 come out then you get a good deal on all of them.
It seems to me that if windows or another MS product is upgraded about every two years, you will be paying £58 for the priviledge of saving £40.
Please someone tell me I am missing something.
Let me provide some useful links to the new M$ Software Assuarance Policy...
These should solve all of your licensing woes for free.
ChrisP If someone resolves an issue for you, or was helpful, please click the link on the bottom left hand corner of their post to give them a "star" letting them know they helped you.
These should solve all of your licensing woes for free.
ChrisP If someone resolves an issue for you, or was helpful, please click the link on the bottom left hand corner of their post to give them a "star" letting them know they helped you.
"Software Assurance" translates to "rent". After 2 or 3 years the users, so far only larger companies, HAVE to come back again when their contact expires. This assures M$ of continued cash flow. Maybe it should have been named "Income Assurance"?
That's probably what's coming next for everyone. Corporations have long been accustomed to renting special mainframe programs. Cost of doing business, etc. Often they were part of a hardware plus software combined solution. But the programs you, me and the rest of the public went down to the corner store to buy have almost always been one-time purchases. Yes, with antivirus software you later buy virus definition updates, but most programs are one-time sales. You get the license forever and you can use it as long as you want. If you want the newer version, you buy that.
Now that 15-20 years of constant improvements have passed, I have read that many users are quite satisfied, by and large, with much of the software they already have. How many more bells and whistles can you add to a word processor? A spreadsheet? Sure, we would all love 3D and other new stuff, but face it, today's programs are quite functional and well stuffed with features. Before, users eagerly and desperately awaited new releases to get better functionality. So the vendor didn't care that licenses never expired since the user always rushed out and bought the next release anyway. Not now.
Before everyone fully realizes that and stops buying, M$ was said to have been planning to "rent" their software licenses, you know, 2 or 3 years at a time. No more indefinite licenses. They are already doing that with their larger corporate clients, calling it Software Assurance. It took a couple years, but many companies have given in. From what I read, they realized the general users wouldn't accept that (yet), so they backed off plans to do the same for consumers... so far.
Most companies today make do on very slim margins. They have no choice. M$ has the big margins and money to buy up small but potential competitors and those who have products they can incorportate into theirs, or use deep pockets to compete. The infamous claim was made that Internet Explorer was "free" because it ought to be free. Why should that be free and nothing else? Of course, it just so happened to compete directly against Netscape's browser which was not free.
(Recent news indicates AOL may dump Netscape now that they got $750 million and IE license for 7 years. Small price for M$ to get rid of a competitor. Another whisper is that IE 6.0 SP1 will be the last standalone browser from M$, as future releases will be tied right back into Windows again now that their antitrust case is over. DOJ, where are you?)
Sun currently offers their StarOffice Suite for $25-$80 per user, depending on the number of users, whereas M$ sets their prices about 8 times higher. Few would try to argue which is better and more polished. But is their program really 8 times better or rather that they have the power to dictate price as few others do? Not to mention, OpenOffice is free from the .org website.
On a final note, I read a description of Office XP which said it had voice recognition capability. Not licensed, no, no, it was developed in house. Seems they are determined to avoid situations where they might have to cross-license, which for everyone else is a common business practice. Either buy the company or develop it for themselves, no third choice.
That's probably what's coming next for everyone. Corporations have long been accustomed to renting special mainframe programs. Cost of doing business, etc. Often they were part of a hardware plus software combined solution. But the programs you, me and the rest of the public went down to the corner store to buy have almost always been one-time purchases. Yes, with antivirus software you later buy virus definition updates, but most programs are one-time sales. You get the license forever and you can use it as long as you want. If you want the newer version, you buy that.
Now that 15-20 years of constant improvements have passed, I have read that many users are quite satisfied, by and large, with much of the software they already have. How many more bells and whistles can you add to a word processor? A spreadsheet? Sure, we would all love 3D and other new stuff, but face it, today's programs are quite functional and well stuffed with features. Before, users eagerly and desperately awaited new releases to get better functionality. So the vendor didn't care that licenses never expired since the user always rushed out and bought the next release anyway. Not now.
Before everyone fully realizes that and stops buying, M$ was said to have been planning to "rent" their software licenses, you know, 2 or 3 years at a time. No more indefinite licenses. They are already doing that with their larger corporate clients, calling it Software Assurance. It took a couple years, but many companies have given in. From what I read, they realized the general users wouldn't accept that (yet), so they backed off plans to do the same for consumers... so far.
Most companies today make do on very slim margins. They have no choice. M$ has the big margins and money to buy up small but potential competitors and those who have products they can incorportate into theirs, or use deep pockets to compete. The infamous claim was made that Internet Explorer was "free" because it ought to be free. Why should that be free and nothing else? Of course, it just so happened to compete directly against Netscape's browser which was not free.
(Recent news indicates AOL may dump Netscape now that they got $750 million and IE license for 7 years. Small price for M$ to get rid of a competitor. Another whisper is that IE 6.0 SP1 will be the last standalone browser from M$, as future releases will be tied right back into Windows again now that their antitrust case is over. DOJ, where are you?)
Sun currently offers their StarOffice Suite for $25-$80 per user, depending on the number of users, whereas M$ sets their prices about 8 times higher. Few would try to argue which is better and more polished. But is their program really 8 times better or rather that they have the power to dictate price as few others do? Not to mention, OpenOffice is free from the .org website.
On a final note, I read a description of Office XP which said it had voice recognition capability. Not licensed, no, no, it was developed in house. Seems they are determined to avoid situations where they might have to cross-license, which for everyone else is a common business practice. Either buy the company or develop it for themselves, no third choice.
All it is is a maintenance contract. Just like what the Antivirus companies do with corporate contracts. If you Choose to purchase software assurance then you are entitled to any new versions of that software during your contracts lifetime. You will have the option to renew the contract. It can save you $ or you can lose money. Its nothing new just a new name.
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