back to article MS gets you hooked on Server 2012 Datacenter, jacks up the price for R2

Microsoft is cranking up the price of its Datacenter edition of Windows Server 2012 for the forthcoming R2 release – it's up a whopping 28 per cent on today's price tag. The Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter edition, which offers unlimited virtualisation rights, will cost $6,155, according to the new licensing data sheet [PDF …

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  1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

    MS has a big hole

    in their Accounts that shoud have been filled with Windows 8 license revenue.

    As it is pretty well empty they have to find revenue from other products to fill it.

    28% is a pretty steep increase.

    There will be some markets where this move by will jusy increase piracy.

    1. dogged
      WTF?

      Re: MS has a big hole

      [MS has a big hole] in their Accounts that shoud have been filled with Windows 8 license revenue.

      Really? Unless I read the report entirely backwards, revenues are up again this year and operating costs are down. The 900m on Surface was defrayed against corporation tax so that didn't hurt their bottom line either.

      Unless you hate Windows 8 to the extent that you can no longer read a balance sheet, I suspect you may be talking out of your arse.

      1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

        @dogged

        But they aren't up enough. Big Corp has nothing to do with "making a profit" or "growing revenue." It has everything to do with growing revenue beyond analyst expectations (which are largely numbers they pull out of their asses anyways.) Stock price isn't determined by market share, market capitalization, actual profits or reasonable growth. IT is determined only by meeting, beating or missing analyst expectations.

        Windows 8 didn't meet analyst expectations. Neither did revenues. Need to bump that up, and the only way to do so is to squeeze the existing base like Oracle.

        Customer? Fuck no, you're a hostage. From the looks of it, a well indoctrinated one. Denial isn't just a river in Egypt, fellow commentard. It seems that it exists deep in your heart as well. Please get on to Anger, Bargaining, Depression and finally Acceptance. You seem like a bright chap, and we're going to need all the brains we can get to start the very long journey away from Microsoft that our industry needs right now.

        Just as moving off Oracle won't happen in it's entirety for some time - or IBM's mainframes, as a previous example - Microsoft will be around for a while yet. But the mass market portion of this exercise has concluded. Microsoft belongs up with Oracle and IBM's mainframe division: relics of the past and pushers of kit to those with extremely high-end - or very niche - needs.

        Onward!

        1. Roger Greenwood
          Pint

          Re: @dogged

          "very long journey away from Microsoft "

          It's always possible that Microsoft could get a clue and start sharing toys/playing nicely again?

          Yeah right, and the Gloucester old spots are fuelled ready to fly.

    2. John Sanders
      Linux

      Re: MS has a big hole

      """There will be some markets where this move by will jusy increase piracy."""

      I would just try Linux instead.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: MS has a big hole

        "I would just try Linux instead."

        Supported enterprise Linux is far more expensive to license than Microsoft's server products - and costs more to run.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @AC 16:42GMT - Re: MS has a big hole

          Use RHEL for critical mission production server and CentOS for the rest. There, I solved it for you. Now you go and do this with Windows.

          1. TheVogon

            Re: @AC 16:42GMT - MS has a big hole

            "Use RHEL for critical mission production server and CentOS for the rest"

            In the enterprise you need to be running the same OS across Dev / UAT / Pre-Prod / DR also or your testing isn't valid...

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              @TheVogon - Re: @AC 16:42GMT - MS has a big hole

              I am very well aware of that. However, paying through your nose and ultimately going bankrupt with all four environments running the same OS would not be of much consolation.

              One medium size company where I was working decided to build their public web site infrastructure and they decided to standardize on Oracle+IIS because... that's what SAP was using (they were also an SAP shop). Afterwards, they were really crying and puling their hair every time they were shown the licensing costs when preparing the annual budget. Now they're bankrupt but, hey! they went down in style.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: @TheVogon - @AC 16:42GMT - MS has a big hole

                "Oracle+IIS because... that's what SAP was using (they were also an SAP shop). Afterwards, they were really crying and puling their hair every time they were shown the licensing costs "

                So that would presumably have been thanks to Oracle. IIS licensing costs are peanuts (just need Windows Server)

            2. P. Lee
              Windows

              Re: @AC 16:42GMT - MS has a big hole

              > In the enterprise you need to be running the same OS across Dev / UAT / Pre-Prod / DR also or your testing isn't valid...

              and with MS, you need to pay for all those license, not just pay for support on your prod systems.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: @AC 16:42GMT - MS has a big hole

                "and with MS, you need to pay for all those license, not just pay for support on your prod systems."

                Exactly as you also have to do on supported Enterprise Linux versions or you don't get patches, etc...

                Microsoft at least provide MSDN license cover for development systems...

        2. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

          @Anonymous FUD Coward

          Hey look, it's the anonymous FUD coward! I was wondering where you'd been in many of the past Microsoft articles. I have a question for you, if you don't mind? I hear that MS is consolidating the different marketing groups into a single entity with the "One Microsoft" move. I know that's already caused some consternation and shakeup within Waggner Edstrom - as you can imagine they are having to bust out of old patterns and learn to do things a little differently) but I am wondering how it's affecting the "little guy" like you?

          Do you see much in the way of management consolidation going on, or are they simply rearranging the coalface marketing types? I imagine the astroturfer brigade works hand in glove with the social media types; how has the move from multiple regions with independent astroturfers and social media bodies in to one group with one level of oversight and chain of command changed how you do your job?

          More importantly, will you finally get together with the other Astroturfers and rationalize your FUD so that you are at least using true bullet points with credible hyperlinks to back them up and teaching eachother the tricks of the trade for making other believe them? Because you're just awful at it. (No offense, I blame management for not training you properly; I know from experience Microsoft has trained far better.)

          But I'm very serious here; which arm are you with? Maybe next time I talk to one of the marketing wonks there I can recommend they send your entire office off to a junket to teach you how to actually not suck at FUD.

        3. Tom Samplonius
          Go

          Re: MS has a big hole

          "Supported enterprise Linux is far more expensive to license than Microsoft's server products - and costs more to run."

          Spoken like a true Ballmerist. But RHEL doesn't have Client Access Licenses, so it is actually 50 to 75% cheaper. I think a lot of businesses just get the core Windows license and never buy any CALs. You will have a nice surprise if MS audits you (you agree to allow audits in the license agreement). RHEL licenses don't as many moving pieces. But RHEL is just a better product.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: MS has a big hole

            "But RHEL doesn't have Client Access Licenses, so it is actually 50 to 75% cheaper."

            RHEL is a LOT more expensive to license - so you have lots of margin in there for CALs. And then don't forget that's per server whereas CALs only have to be purchased once per client device.

            Then when you start adding on things that are optional extras in RHEL, but come standard with Windows Server, the cost stack up even higher - e.g:

            'Smart' Management - $576

            High Availability - $798

            Resilient Storage - $1,598

            And that's without looking at 'Scalable' File system, Load Balancer, High Performance Networking, or Extended update support.

      2. h3

        Re: MS has a big hole

        On Hyperv (With domain services provided by Samba 4).

        Using other stuff running on hyperv server if you need them. (It can do almost everything the normal one can).

        I probably wouldn't use Linux unless I absolutely had to for a really decent technical reason. It is getting all the annoyances that made stuff like XP such a pita to deal with. The BSD's are quite clean in comparison and easy to deal with.

      3. returnmyjedi

        Nothing would make me happier to use Linux, but our IT dept is too darned small to effectively run it. I'm happy to moan about MS's licenses til the moocows come home, but their support network (for my company at least) has never failed to be anything less then excellent.

        A similar sized company to the one I work for did a study on the costs of Linux over a ten year period, and it was four times that of a windows based system. I can see why large corporations and governments would go for the penguin solution, but for us little fish it seems like nothing more than a pipe dream.

        1. xj25vm
          FAIL

          "A similar sized company to the one I work for did a study on the costs of Linux over a ten year period, and it was four times that of a windows based system."

          They were either doing it completely wrong, or you are talking through your backside. The Linux small sites I support cost anywhere between a factor of 4 to a factor of 10 less then an MS setup with same functionality at the server end - taking into account initial setup (hardware, software, labour) and long term support costs. But I've only been keeping an eye on them for 5 years now - so maybe your 10 year "study" is more accurate then?

          1. dogged
            Meh

            Or maybe he works for a company with some level of "MS partner" programme membership and they get all their stuff for free anyway. With support.

            A lot of companies do.

          2. returnmyjedi

            It's more to do with our own admittedly niche requirements that without going into too many details involve having to deal with the NHS N3 connection. If anyone has managed to get a Linux based solution to interface with that hornets nest of delights please (please, please!) PM me.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @ returnmyjedi - Four time more ?

          And which Microsoft partner/VAR "helped" them with the study ? Did they get the facts (TM) ?

      4. Nezumi
        Linux

        Re: MS has a big hole

        Since my TechNet access will shortly be terminated, I'll be doing just that. This also has the benefit to my employer that I'll eventually be able to administer Linux (CentOS/RHLE) for certain uses.

        Been meaning to go down this route for years. Microsoft finally provided the incentive I needed.

        I'm also returning to Android for personal phone and tablet use. I will however be retaining Windows as a personal desktop client for the time being.

        This was obviously the type of response MIcrosoft expected when they pulled TechNet wasn't it?

        If I can't learn Microsoft products, I'll just find others. The writing's on the wall for MS in the SME space IMHO anyway...

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: MS has a big hole

      XBox costing more, SQL Server costing more, office costing more. All to pay for M$ fail elsewhere.

      This is why M$ should be broken up into divisions and no propping up of loss making departments. Fail and you're shut down, there's no better incentive for success than that.

    4. Nate Amsden

      Re: MS has a big hole

      28% is steep but nothing compared to Redhat, RHEL6 jacked up the price 260% for 4-socket unlimited VMs when it came out in 2010. Also they seemed to do away with unlimited socket as a standard option. Google "Red Hat Jacks up RHEL pricing" for a blog post I wrote on it at the time (nothing interesting in the post I'm just not aware of any other places that showed the price hike).

      Now that I am thinking of it here is the internet archive results which show the change:

      http://web.archive.org/web/20100105061420/https://www.redhat.com/wapps/store/catalog.html

      post hike:

      http://web.archive.org/web/20110926052719/https://www.redhat.com/wapps/store/catalog.html

      So Red Hat must really be in trouble! (maybe they are but I think they are doing OK)

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: MS has a big hole

      "The price hike is a sucker-punch"

      The price rise simply reflects that you can now virtualise more server VMs onto newer CPUs and modern larger memory capacity servers. Datacentre is a per CPU unlimited Windows Server VM client virtualisation license.

    6. Bob Vistakin
      Headmaster

      Re: MS has a big asshole

      Called Blamer at the helm, and he's ruining it very nicely indeed

      FTFYA

    7. h3

      Re: MS has a big hole

      I don't think the people who would pirate would pay even the other price.

      More likely use Website Spark or Dreamspark (If you have a student working for you dunno if that is a legit license or not) or Bizspark and just pay the £100 or whatever at the end of the term.

  2. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

    *ahem*

    I TOLD YOU SO

    1. Steven Raith
      Happy

      Re: *ahem*

      Indeed you did. So where if your magnum opus article on moving an SMB to open source stuff.

      Not that I'm too lazy to research it myself.

      *cough*

      Steven R

      1. Getriebe

        Re: *ahem*

        As per Steve R - one of the now very few reasons I come back to Reg is to see this. I am truly interested.

      2. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

        Re: *ahem*

        Working on it. I'd love to have a great excuse for you, but the reality is that I'm just so busy getting myself, my staff and my clients ready for VMworld I am only sleeping 2-3 hours a week. Time for research has been next to nil. That's not a good excuse at all and I feel terrible about not getting around to writing as much as I'd like, but it is the truth.

        If it makes you feel better I'm training new sysadmin bloggers so that you have more voices than just mine; each with their own ideas and hopefully collectively we'll have more time to do research.

        1. Steven Raith
          Thumb Up

          Re: *ahem*

          Cheers Trev, I didn't think you'd forgotten about us. :-)

          Been speaking to a few other local IT support companies and they are getting well stuck in with open source appliances for specific tasks, so I'd be interested to see where you think this is going/can go when it comes to migrating (or accentuating perhaps?) existing MS shops to include more OSS gear.

          Steven R

  3. Lee D Silver badge

    Question:

    Who exactly is paying $6,155 per server to run Windows on it? Because, sure as hell, I don't know anybody. If you're in that kind of datacenter area, would you really tolerate that price? And if you're not, well, you wouldn't be touching it with a bargepole.

    How many virtualised instances do you have to have to make $6,155 look puny in your overall "profit margin per server"? And quite what do you get for that money over alternatives?

    I think that, as usual, these prices are nothing more than pie-in-the-sky and if you ARE paying them then you're an idiot. If you're at the point where you're buying hundreds of them and still paying $6k or even $4k each, then you're not going to be in the job long.

    The cost of an OEM version of Windows astounds me, let alone server editions and CAL's. God knows what I'd do with a $6k quote landing in my inbox for a single physical machine. Probably laugh or die, or more likely both.

    1. Smoking Gun
      Meh

      Why would you buy DataCenter edition for a single physical machine?

      Maybe Microsoft believe they have a hypervisor that can compete with or beat ESX and therefore feel the price point should reflect that, otherwise maybe they do indeed have a gapping hole in the finances that needs to be filled.

      Or is it a ploy to attached VMware market share from those VMware / Windows customers who now need to factor a more costly Windows as well as vSphere into their business case. Skip vSphere, deploy 2012...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Lots of sites actually...

      Buy one license per physical machine, run *as many* Windows VM instances on it as necessary.

      If you buy your servers with 128GB+ RAM, iLO/IMM/CIMC/DRAC remote management, VMWare Enterprise (or Ent+), and 10GB Ethernet SFPs, do you really think $6K is that much of an imposition? We, in the real world include it in the cost of operating in the opposite end of the water park from the paddling pool.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Lots of sites actually...

        And with Hyper-V server being totally free, VMware is no longer required...

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Lots of sites actually...

        And if those VMs are all running Windows, they will need a Windows licence each won't they?

        ISTM this pricing is for companies who have a one-vendor policy ("one point of responsibility for any issues", "nobody got sacked for buying Microsoft"). If you buy into that then obviously they have you by the short and curlies.

        The rest of the world looks at the other solutions - even VMware - and decides they are cheap in comparison.

        1. Alex Rose

          Re: Lots of sites actually...

          "And if those VMs are all running Windows, they will need a Windows licence each won't they?"

          No, that's the point of DC edition, you can run as many VMs as you like and they are covered by your DC licence.

    3. This post has been deleted by its author

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "Who exactly is paying $6,155 per server to run Windows on it"

      That's the cost per 2 CPUS.

      And pretty much anyone who virtualises more than a few dozen Windows Servers should likely be buying the Datacentre license as the most cost effective option....

  4. Smoking Gun

    Where is Jeremy Kyle when you need him? "Get me of this crack addition"!!

  5. Phil W

    Software Assurance

    I would of thought very nearly all of the people who will want/need Datacenter R2 will be SA subscribers anyway so I can't see how this is going to make them all that much cash.

    1. Mr Anonymous
      Facepalm

      Re: Software Assurance

      "I would of thought very nearly all of the people who will want/need Datacenter R2 will be SA subscribers anyway so I can't see how this is going to make them all that much cash."

      Well, I suggest you open your eyes then.

      Having SA for 3 years means, on average 33% will be renewing each year. Also don't forget this is on top of the 20-34% rise we had to "harmonise" pricing across the EU last year.

      The web edition of the 'OS' disappeared with the 2012 version release, after MS had hooked people on to the "cheap" hosting edition, the only upgrade path is to standard.

      I guess that the web edition of SQL server will go the same way too once they decide they have hooked enough lemmings.

  6. W. Anderson

    MS extortion?

    With the whole world turning to Linux and *BSD UNIX-like for their small business all the way up to enterprise server infrastructure, it is bewildering to any sane person why corporations and organizations would stay with Microsoft Server OS at three to four times the initial and long term costs over *NIX - not to mention heart-ache from poor reliability and terrible security, which has been proven over and over again with almost every credible entity in USA, Europe, South America, Asia and elsewhere.

    A perfect example is recent choice of FreeBSD by Netflix for streaming millions of movies per day to customers world wide. Windows Server 2012 reportedly could not even get off the ground in trials.

    I say "go for it Microsoft", if these doofus companies are that gullible and stupid, why not gouge their pockets.

    1. Mr. Peterson

      Re: MS extortion?

      filed under: the W's 8 Halo effect

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