VIRTUAL LICENSING - brilliant Move by Microsoft

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/10/2155223

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2005/oct05/10-10virtualizationlicensing.mspx

Why did it take so long?

Sounds greedy to me.

Detroit Muscle wrote:

Sounds greedy to me.

From the vaunted pages of Slashdot:

"Either is that greed talking or they feel that people cheat with terminal servers to avoid buying OS licenses. "
Rated +4, Insightful.
SLASHDOT IS STUPID!

z33driver wrote:

Detroit Muscle wrote:Sounds greedy to me.

Greedy?  They're making it cheaper and easier for customers.

z33driver wrote:

Detroit Muscle wrote:Sounds greedy to me.

Greedy?  They're making it cheaper and easier for customers.

sysrpl wrote:

z33driver wrote: Detroit Muscle wrote: Sounds greedy to me. Greedy?  They're making it cheaper and easier for customers.

So let me see if I understand this. Microsoft went through all the trouble of implementing a new licensing scheme to earn less money?

No.

Microsoft wrote:

Instead of licensing every inactive or stored virtual instance of a Windows Server System product, customers can now create and store an unlimited number of instances, including those for back-up and recovery, and only pay for the maximum number of running instances at any given time.

Microsoft wrote:

Therefore, we now have a policy for Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition that allows customers to run up to four running virtual instances on one server at no additional cost. And we’ll go further with the Datacenter Edition of Windows Server "Longhorn," the code name for the next version of Windows Server, by allowing customers to run unlimited virtual instances on one server at no additional charge.

If you want to see what analysts are saying about this, instead of random slashdot commenters , here's an interesting article from eWeek:

Microsoft Corp. customers reacted with surprise and even some disbelief Monday at the software giant's announcement that it was simplifying its software licensing terms for virtual machine environments.
...
Microsoft customers who attended the briefing Monday questioned Kelly on why the company would implement a licensing policy that would have the potential of sharply cutting its server licensing revenue.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1869571,00.asp

It doesn't go into the previous lead we've taken in similar areas - iirc we decided not to charge extra SQL Server licensing fees when hyperthreading/multicore CPUs appeared, and then IBM and Oracle had to play catch up. Looks like that's going to happen all over:

"I think other vendors are going to have to sit down and immediately start making adjustments," Lewis said.
"But they aren't necessarily going to do it happily, because it is far different from what they are used to doing," she said.

The day SlashDot people start saying good stuff about Microsoft, is the day a monkey comes out of my äss.

TommyCarlier wrote:

The day SlashDot people start saying good stuff about Microsoft, is the day a monkey comes out of my äss.

It's good, it's goooood.

Whatever the analysts say the stock price is still going south, but that maybe the Real settlement.