Unless..
Unless the customer is big and makes noises about moving to open source.
In which case they step in and massive discounts magically materialise.
I don't think their modus operandi is that different. It just sounds different.
Microsoft is slashing the price of some server operating systems and it has stopped short of a full price increase on others to avoid giving customers a so-called "cash-ectomy". Service providers running Windows Server 2008 R2 Web, Standard, and Enterprise editions will see their license agreements cut by 21 per cent from …
Everything that MS server and client software can do, Linux can also. So, if you are a medium sized company with 1000 or so users, a single Windows server w/ enough CAL's for all the systems will cost in excess of $70,000USD. Linux? $0USD. Thanks, I'll take that $70K now and buy some neat x-mas presents for the gang!
a linux installation that can do ASP.NET. Not asp (as in chilisoft) but true ASP.NET.
Or maybe mssql?
While Linux does have its equivalents, there are many differences and some things can not be on on equivalent software.
Linux can not do everything that a MS server can.
* I only use linux servers.
There's a quirk in the Windows Server Datacenter Edition SPLA license that allows unlimited virtualisation, so Windows VPS/VDS providers just get a single WS Datacenter license per physical box, and then install Standard or Enterprise in each virtualised partition. It costs about £40/month (incl VAT) per physical server right now, so if you're selling 10 VDS partitions per physical server you'd be making a tidy profit, but if Microsoft is raising this to nearly £60 it might push up VDS prices considerably.
MS are just like Oracle. Except that they tend to make their agreements in secret and require NDAs.
If they really wanted to put things right, MS need to change their licensing altogether... It's too bloody confusing. Especially when the marketting guff says something different to the actual license or product.
So, this is only to service providers... Guys like RackSpace and Amazon and probably telcos that offer cloud. Why would they do that? Cause they aren't competitive, that's why and they compete directly with their own customers in that space. Really, why would I provide an MS solution if they are shoving Azure at the same customers I am trying to sell to? Kinda messy.
Also, if virtualization is the primal foundation layer for any large service provider, there are better virtualization solutions out there like KVM and Xen and Oracle VM which can be free and include management tools. They're stuck and they had to adjust the price and it still may not help. This must be a scary time for them. Android proved there is a model that can beat them and if the server business becomes androidified, they lose bigtime... and they know it. This crap about not wanting to vacuum customers wallets because they are such nice people is just horse puckey !
There are dozens of Exchange replacements thts not only work with Outlook, but support open standards such as CalDAV, CardDAV etc so work out of the box with Linux and Apple clients, as well as smart phones. Most have ActiveSync support for iPhones, Android, WinMo, Nokia even BlackBerry (third party ActiveSync client required).
Try Scalix, Kerio, Zimbra, Open-xchange for starters.