back to article Complexity and confusion drive Microsoft's licensing

Microsoft's licensing is tying customers in knots, with organizations spending needless amounts to ensure they remain compliant. That's according to Directions on Microsoft. The analyst firm blames a growing number of MS products and the fact that individual product groups are picking what licenses to use and setting price in …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Yes it's a nightmare

    On the occasions in the past where I've been forced to use Microsoft crap, one of the biggest nightmares has been the licensing. I dread to think how many hours I've spent on the phone to Microsoft trying to work it all out, and the Microsoft employees on the other end of the phone were usually just as confused as I was about it all. Horrendous.

  2. A J Stiles
    Pint

    Easy way to stay compliant

    There's a very easy way to stay compliant with all your software licences.

    That is, insist *only* on OSI-accredited licences (so you can make and deploy as many copies as you like); and whenever you allow anyone to make copies of software, give them the Source Code (not all licences require this, but some do; and even if they don't, it's only polite).

    It's surely just a matter of time anyway before a court rules that using software you paid for is fair dealing, and the whole "end user licence agreement" house of cards comes tumbling down.

    Beer, because I can get more of them in when I don't have to worry about licences.

  3. adnim
    Megaphone

    It was

    pretty simple when there was just DOS.

    MS licencing has always been complicated, there are those who have made a career from advising corporations on how to go about licencing MS products.

    I don't expect MS to give away software for free, I do expect them to charge as much as the market will support. What really angers me about the MS licencing model, as well as the complexity, is the CAL. Microsoft charge for the use of server software, they charge for the use of client software, fair enough, but to charge to actually connect a client to a server is taking the piss.

    The GPL is pretty simple and the pricing structure is awesome

  4. Ole Juul

    One or the other, but not both

    First they make you figure out all the legal paperwork, and then they have the audacity to charge you money on top of that. I honestly think that is asking too much.

  5. Alex Brett

    SPLA issues

    With their SPLA (service provider) licensing, they say you have to license every CPU the physical box has, regardless of how many are exposed to the VM (e.g. 10-CPU box, you'd have get 10 per-CPU licenses for each VM, even if you only gave them one vCPU each!)...

    They then get very confused trying to claim that you have to do that because you have to license the version running on the physical hardware, but if you're not using Hyper-V, but some other virtualisation solution there won't be a version running on the physical hardware!

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    Not surprised!

    "We continue to look for ways to make the purchasing experience simpler for customers, including our current multi-year investment to ultimately shift the customer experience to one purchasing platform and a single agreement for any type of offer,"

    to:

    "We continue to look for ways to make purchasing simpler for customers, including our current multi-year investment to move the customer to one tier and a single agreement for any offer,"

    For every clued up person they're will be a handful of saps who accidenly pay too much for their goodies, ce la vie!

  7. Goat Jam
    Linux

    0$

    That is how much I spend ensuring my *nix systems are properly licensed.

    As if the licenses themselves weren't expensive enough, you have all the compliance costs as well.

    I'm sure MS don't factor those costs into their "Windows is cheaper than Linux" propaganda either.

  8. myxiplx
    Thumb Down

    MS + Virtualisation = Fail

    A while ago I created a table comparing the different MS licences for Windows Server for use when we virtualised our network.

    Despite their support for virtualisation in their licences, it wasn't the enterprise or datacenter edition that worked out best. The artificial restrictions included with the licences, combined with the extreme price of the datacenter edition meant that the standard version worked out both cheaper and more flexible.

    The enterprise edition looked great on paper, until you realised that that five licences included have to be run on the same piece of hardware. And that means can't live migrate or load balance the enterprise edition (you're in breach of the licence as soon as you move one server on its own).

    So ironically you have to buy the standard edition if you want to use enterprise level virtualisation features.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Configuration Management Server???

    Being the non-MS Windows chap that I am, can someone explain WHY you would feel the need to spend hundeds (or indeed thousands) of your earh dollers on "configuration" software? What does it "configure" that's SO complex you can't do it for free (or at least much reduced cost) using existing tools? I can configure my BSD box to do pretty much anything I want with a few command lines and scripts.

  10. Field Marshal Von Krakenfart
    Linux

    Simple Server solution

    Linux & Samba. Simple and effective, and cheap, if all you need to do host a windoze filesystem.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Simplicity

    "Microsoft pointed out that it has made some efforts to simplify licensing in recent years. This included [...] making them much easier to understand."

    Holy shit. They must have been impossible to understand before this! (Unless of course you're a well paid MS lawyer)

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    In other news...

    Bears really do defecate among the trees, and the Pope has been shown to be Catholic.

    Why would this surprise anyone? MS is not in the business for anybody but their own sake. They have no incentive to help customers spend less money on their products. It's like mobile companies, really. Make it impossible to compare products and most people will just go "Sod it, gimme that green one, it's shiny".

  13. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    2 week training on m$ Lics

    A while a go i was looking at finding out all about m$ lic's and found they had a two week "introduction" to M$ lics. that's just nuts!

    They are making it hard on purpose and they wont change something thats making them a lot of money!

    insane

  14. N2

    smacks of

    Ah but, what you really needed was...

  15. Inachu
    Grenade

    To hell with microsoft.

    I will not count and return infoon how much I own of a competitors product to ensure I meet lic restrictions set forth by MS.

    So what if I own a mac based labratory. Its none of MS business.

    So what if I own a unix lab.... its none of MS business.

    If you ask me how much of unrelated stuff I own then I just mark down ZERO.

    One day Microsoft may ask how many non microsoft gaming consoles I own just to buy the xbox360...... SO WHAT!!!!!!!! I really do not care what they think or want to know.

    My advice. Lie to them if they think they are getting too nosy.

  16. Llama-made
    Alert

    Suits Microsoft

    No-one who has had to deal with Microsoft licensing at the business end thinks of it as anything other than deliberately arcane and convoluted. The confusion suits Microsoft: businesses spend money on licenses they don't strictly need just to be safe, and even then no business feels safe from a BSA audit, most can't be completely sure they are in compliance.

    This is known as coercion by most people, but for some reason it isn't in the IT world, it's seen as standard practice.

    The solution is (of course) to avoid Microsoft products wherever possible lest one get trapped in their licensing web. Samba (or an appliance built on Samba) fixes part of the problem, the Google apps a great deal also. The two of them together provide a decent enough solution for many small to medium businesses, even if they do still have to run a Microsoft OS on the desktop itself.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Re: Licence Training Course

    "...A while a go i was looking at finding out all about m$ lic's and found they had a two week "introduction" to M$ lics. that's just nuts!..."

    ...and I bet they charge a fortune for the course too! :-) Got to love 'em.

    WHY does anyone use MS again??? Then again, if people are stupid enough to buy into this stuff then you can't really blame MS for selling it, can you? I know I would!

  18. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    @Llama-made

    "..no business feels safe from a BSA audit..."

    Why don't you just the the BSA where to go? They are a self-apointed bunch of wot-nots - they're not customs and excise.

  19. Gannon (J.) Dick
    Pint

    Please!

    ... because a major change would unleash "a tsunami of transition issues [of] unanticipated, or unintended consequences."

    Oh yeah, and it's really not fair for patent trolls to come along and tell us what we invented either!

    Computer Software is the only drug sold where "off-label" uses are prohibited by the Manufacturer. If Pfizer had a EULA they would be 5 Billion $ richer.

    Beer, because it helps me forget whatever it was that I was supposed to remember.

  20. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Alert

    Ok, so how are they going to check...

    ...those time-limit clauses in the EULAs?

    Send over the BSA for a quick look or something?

    "Yes, we keep track of all our VM shifts on the dossiers kept in this big safe. If you would like to enter and take a look..."

  21. Maty

    I can simplify this further

    "We continue to look for ways to make the purchasing experience simpler for customers, including our current multi-year investment to ultimately shift the customer experience to one purchasing platform and a single agreement for any type of offer,"

    to

    'We continue to look for ways to make our licensing so complex and predatory that the confused customer shafts himself , but ultimately want to shift the customer to a single self-shafting experience.'

    Note the resemblance to the mobile phone industry with it's multi-tier price structures, 'minutes' discounts, and packages. Overall this makes it impossible to compare one offer against another and simply choose the cheapest. And the customer coughs at the end of the month, because it's easier than working out exactly what was paid for.

    There's no real option with a mobile phone, but if MS didn't have its huge installed user base, would its current product line really be able to compete?

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    and then M$ put it on CD-ROMs ...

    ... and most of the companies I have worked for just make copies on load all over the place.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Megaphone

    What about IBM?

    The MS licenses are very simple compared to IBM licenses.

    For myxiplx: if you purchase non OEM licenses you don't have limitations.

  24. This post has been deleted by its author

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    All stressed IT workers beer money = CLASS action

    If they structure their licensing in such a way that medium to large sized shop will be in breach of their licenses. Any licensing contract would essentially be an arbitrary figure pulled out of the air by whatever MS's current interpretation of its own licensing is.

    So any shop which uses MS will most likely be in breach of the licensing conditions. I wonder why there hasn't been a class action against this?

    Only solution dont use MS products. Life becomes soo much easier on those software audits.

  26. kobyrne
    Thumb Up

    I agree...

    ...don't use MS, there are better and cheaper alternatives.

    Anonymous Coward states IBM licensing is more complex but that is simply not true.

    Besides, the link posted by Peter to IBM's "Project Liberate" is about them showing customers where they are "paying through the nose" for MS all you can eat, global or other licenses when they could be choosing smarter licensing that saves them money.

    Also a lot of products don't have to be MS at all (but not necessarily IBM either).

    Costs the customer nothing to use "Liberate" and it gives them somthing to beat MS up with come license renewal time.

    nice!

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Its not MS, its 'vendors' in general.

    So much fuss over Microsoft! You really should get out more.

    I figure no one here has ever tried to license oracle, or SAP, or (worst of all) IBM. Microsoft is hideous - without a doubt - but they're a breeze compared to the traditional "enterprise" vendors.

    I agree we should pay for our software (to keep the industry alive, to reward the coders, general fairness, etc., etc.) but why must it be so complicated to do so?

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Megaphone

    IBM licensing is more complex.

    For Kobyrne:

    Have you tried to license some IBM products that you want to deploy on VMWare or Hyper-V? Do you know that you need to consider number of cores, virtual CPUs and CPU type? And what about calculating VU (value unit) for some Tivoli products? And about subprocessing capacity? And which are the limitations of complimentary products (like Sametime with Domino or Omnifind with Portal)?

    It is a nightmare!

    I think that the entire industry needs to reconsider the licensing schemes. Blaming MS only for complexity is not the right way to go.

    To The Register: consider to investigate more on the subject. Look at MS, IBM, SAP, Oracle and even some open source vendors (some of them use traps hidden in "commercial" use of their products).

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