"Businesses that want the Enterprise Edition of Microsoft's forthcoming Windows Vista operating system will have to sign up for its Software Assurance licensing program, the company announced today. Software Assurance, introduced in 2001, encourages customers to pay an annual fee to use Microsoft's software rather than buying outright licenses. The annual fee includes software upgrades plus other support services." Hmm ... I wonder who is going to put up with this when there is a perfectly reliable, robust alternative, namely Linux and the LAMP stack. I think they are doomed even for companies that have large $soft investments .... more and more applications will be cycled off their platforms .....
will that apply strictly to business or retail customers as well? If not do you think theres any chance of them applying the same idea to retail customers as well ?
Dont know yet: this was expected however and is one of the reasons we dumped $soft a couple of years ago - we were correct in our assessment it seems. I really think there will be some new business opportunities opening up based upon this policy: thanks $soft.
Companies are willing to pay for support and upgrades. Why do you think large corporations buy 1000s of Linux licenses from RedHat at $1500/year when they can get it "free"? Business is business and hobby is hobby. You have to seperate the two.
Hang on .... I didn't say hobby. Some of the largest companies in the United States are running LINUX and the LAMP stack. Moreover, you dont know what you are talking about: there is a growing contingent of midsize and even large companies that are simply not paying the suggested "'support" fees and are setting up their own inhouse operations, or if they outsource, then those companies are setting up the units. You need to get your facts straight and actually read the posts before you comment.
MS gets you by the balls and then they squeeze. This kind of annual licensing is costing our business ridiculous sums of money. I can't believe it...it's extortion. Got to be a better way. m
Actually, you are mistaken. The enterprise market as a whole has been migrating towards similar license schemes for several years now - in fact, I would say Microsoft waited longer that it had too. Most midsize and large companies will negotiate these fees, but in the end will have little to no issue paying them.
The same people that have been putting up with them for years. MS will continue to lose small amounts of market share to Linux etc., but there will not be a large deluge until Linux gets their shit together. The main reason that MS will continue for a while is just momentum. IT leaders do not want to take the risk of a Linux move when MS licensing is such a relatively small budget item for them. You may think it is a huge chunk of change, but I am familiar with MS licensing and it doesn't really cost all that much. IT leaders are a risk-averse type. Why take the huge risk of changing to Linux? If it blows up in their faces, they have to answer some hard questions from the people in charge. "What benefit was gained taking this risk to move to a different OS?", for example. There is no "killer app" for linux that overcomes this in general computing. There may be some in some niche areas. This is also not an issue in the cheapest of the cheap companies that will take the opportunity to cut every single dime they can from their budgets and just deal with whatever risk comes their way. This is one of the big areas that Linux has had success in (the other being companies with anti-MS zealots in leadership). I prefer not to work for this type of company, because any company too cheap to pay MS licensing fees doesn't want to pay me what I'm worth either.
MS will be just fine. I heard "death of Microsoft" predictions for more than 10 years now and they are still here
Uhh...... I am well aware of the licensing scheme and the budget and costs for major companies. Wrong. Like I said, whole internal organizations are bieng set up around alternatives to $soft and $racle systems... You need to get out more ....