Microsoft raises tablet virtualization licenses to stave off iPad threat - Page 2

Quote:

Originally Posted by SolipsismX 


While a cheap tactic I see nothing anticompetitive about it.

It looks more than a bit like using their Windows (PC) monopoly, to leverage themselves into the tablet (iPad) market and suppress competition there. On the other hand, the Windows monopoly is a little creaky these days, and this will probably more have the effect of suppressing Windows 8 sales than iPad sales. But, I think this is more just Microsoft's was of milking their customers for every penny they can, than any real hope of taking over the tablet market. Eventually, Windows will become so expensive to use that no one will.

Quote:

Originally Posted by irnchriz 

By the time any large corp has to contend with the new pricing it will be looking at Windows 9 (or whatever) as no IT department would be evaluating a move to Windows/Server 8 anytime soon.  The only people moving to windows 8 are your average punters and the guys in the boardroom who like the new shiny shiny.  IT departments dont care about the average joes but have to deal with the eejits from the boardroom...  'Yes Sir, you dont know how to use your new ultrabook with windows 8...let me upgrade that to windows 7 for you"  lol

IT depts wont move to windows 8 anytime soon BUT A TON of depts will move to windows server 2012 because there are some HUGE changes to hyper-v that are very important.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chelgrian 

 

 

This isn't about RDPing into your desktop PC. The license is for accessing entirely additional copy of Windows running on a server somewhere. Or single applications running on a server displaying on a tablet (I refuse to use this stupid 'Virtual Desktop Infrastructure' and 'Virtual App' or 'App Streaming' terminology). It also seems to cover this 'Windows To Go' thing which is simply yet another copy of Windows locked down with whatever your corporate IT department want to lock down and booted off a USB key. What they are saying is that if you buy a Windows RT tablet you get rights to do this anyway, if you have an iPad you have to buy one 'Companion Device License' for each user and each user can have 4 devices.

 

If course the cheap way to do this is to not drink the 'Virtual Desktop' KoolAid and provide a VPN + Firewall mechanism which allows the user to connect to their PC and only their PC via one of the many RDP clients available.

With any luck, this will apply more pressure to get people to switch to server operating systems that don't have extortionate client access fees.

A number of years ago, we bought an xServe which came with unlimited client licenses for less money than just the Windows licensing cost alone would have been (not even counting the hardware to run Windows Server). If you have to pay for tablets to access your server, as well, the Windows cost gets even higher.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DGNR8 

 

This will be a problem for MS, additional tax for the privilege to use an OS that is not geared for corporate environments.

 

Every company I work with has zero plans to migrate from 7.

 

They now have there desktops now fully functional with 7 and users finally trained.

 

There is no huge benefit for a company to spend the license fees and the training expense for the new OS they do not want, AGAIN!!!!!, in such a short period.

 

I have been beta testing the 8 and I can tell you right now this is not going to work in corporate unless they turn off tiles.

 

I see a terrible adoption rate for this version.

 

Windows 9 will fix Windows 8 like Windows 7 fixed Windows Vista.

 

I am not a Windows basher at all, I actually like Windows 7.

 

It is a most stable version of Windows since Windows 2000.

 

However Windows 8 is the biggest mistake MS has made since Windows ME.

 

They are trying to compete with Apple and Android to go after consumer market, tisk tisk … Big Mistake.

 

I won't even go into there numerous mistakes they have made in virtualization and the way they have tried to punish enviros using Citrix or VMWare

Re the bolded:
I can just imagine the difficulty of teaching millions of computerphobes a new UI.

Fortunately, it's not hard for IT to turn it off and I expect they will do so before delivering new PCs to their users' desks. Of course, after having done that, there's little (if any) advantage to Windows 8 vis a vis Windows 7.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tallest Skil 

 

I seem to recall Ballmer saying that Windows 8 could be their last version of Windows if people don't take to it.

If he actually said that, it's just one more example of why you shouldn't pay attention to anything Ballmer says. There's absolutely no way they would stop upgrading Windows.

Rather, if it doesn't do well, I can picture MS doing 2 things:

1. Offering a 'downgrade' license to purchasers of new PCs which come with Windows 8. They've done that before.

2. Immediately start with the promises about how great Windows 9 will be.  There's also precedent for that. They seem to have a pretty solid history of alternating 'good' and 'lousy' releases. After every lousy release, they get their act together and the next one is usually significantly improved.

Quote:

Originally Posted by radwansk 

Hey, if you can't out innnovate,  This, right here, is why Microsoft needs to go down.

Cool your jets there, buddy.

Microsoft do some brilliant products that can't be ignored; SQLServer and .NET are more than enough reason to keep MS around.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jragosta 

Re the bolded:
I can just imagine the difficulty of teaching millions of computerphobes a new UI.

 

Fortunately, it's not hard for IT to turn it off and I expect they will do so before delivering new PCs to their users' desks. Of course, after having done that, there's little (if any) advantage to Windows 8 vis a vis Windows 7.

You /cannot/ turn off the Metro UI. You could in the Developer Preview with a little registry tweak but Consumer Preview (and newer) have you stuck with it.

I did read somewhere ages ago that MS Will allow Metro to be turned off for business users.

The catch? Buy the enterprise version. $$$ cha-ching!

Then, within the same article, someone from MS said "then it would only be a minor update to Windows 7".

I wish I bookmarked that article. My face when reading it was priceless.

ಠ_ಠ

Quote:

Originally Posted by benanderson89 

 

 

Cool your jets there, buddy.

Microsoft do some brilliant products that can't be ignored; SQLServer and .NET are more than enough reason to keep MS around.

The only thing MS (and Oracle) has over open source solutions (like MySQL, Hadoop, MongoDB, etc.) is that they provide enterprise-level support. Many people may not realize just how much that support costs in terms of the license and renewal fee...it would be cheaper for them to bring staff in to deal with all issues and save a bundle.

SQL Server is a great product. But it's among a field of great products, not a stand-out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum 


There may be an illegal anticompetitive tie-in -- like the case in the 1960s where IBM was sued for requiring that only IBM punched cards be used in IBM Accounting machines.

It's not illegal in any way unless they treat Windows 8 tablets differently than iPads. As long as their remote access rules apply the same regardless of the type of client, there's nothing at all illegal or uncompetitive about it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by benanderson89 

 

You /cannot/ turn off the Metro UI. You could in the Developer Preview with a little registry tweak but Consumer Preview (and newer) have you stuck with it.

I did read somewhere ages ago that MS Will allow Metro to be turned off for business users.

 

The catch? Buy the enterprise version. $$$ cha-ching!

 

Then, within the same article, someone from MS said "then it would only be a minor update to Windows 7".

 

I wish I bookmarked that article. My face when reading it was priceless.

 

ಠ_ಠ

You can easily turn off tiles - which is what I was referring to.

The rest of the UI may also be a problem. As I've said, I suspect that MS will have to offer a downgrade to Windows 8 on request.

It is just M$ trying to persevere their revenue stream. I know my company last year moved off Outlook for mail and save the company $10M in licensing and maintenance fees, we use gmail for corporations which is not as nice to use as outlook but it save the company money. They are also moving away from anything M$ based where it required ongoing licensing and other fees. Only those companies which are so intrench with the M$ way will be stuck.

My wife company is in the process or rewriting their entire product which in the past was based solely on M$ product and Flash. They gave gotten so many complaints form their customers to make their product work with OSX and iOS they are making the switch to a non-M$ solution and HTML5 so that is will be cross platform compatible.

It is kind of funny how M$ converted the business world from IBM Mainframe and almost killed the company and M$ is now turning into a IBM themselves. Eventually companies will reduces their reliance on M$ in the future.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bullhead 

What a surprise, Microsoft leveraging their illegally obtained monopoly to stifle innovation and force their overpriced crap software on everyone.

Stupid, isn't this more likely to hurt adoption of Windows 8?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maestro64 

It is just M$ trying to persevere their revenue stream. I know my company last year moved off Outlook for mail and save the company $10M in licensing and maintains fees, we use gmail for corporations which is not as nice to use as outlook but it save the company money. They are also moving away from anything M$ based where it required ongoing licensing and other fees. Only those companies which are so intrench with the M$ way will be stuck.

 

My wife company is in the process or rewriting their entire product which in the past was based solely on M$ product and Flash. They gave gotten so many complaints form their customers to make their product work with OSX and iOS they are making the switch to a non-M$ solution and HTML5 so that is will be cross platform compatible.

 

It is kind of funny how M$ converted the business world from IBM Mainframe and almost killed the company and M$ is now turning into a IBM themselves. Eventually companies will reduces their reliance on M$ in the future.

Wow!  Can you disclose how many accounts/employees are covered by that $10M?

Quote:

Originally Posted by SolipsismX 


While certainly good counter-arguments I'm looking at this more like Apple v. Psystar, where Apple has the right to choose how and who to license their OS too. as Jargosta states, this only becomes tricky if they don't make it consistent but I think there might be ways to account for the licensing fees being included in every Win8 tablet to get around legal matters.
I certainly can't imagine MS made this decision lightly or without getting a team of lawyers in on it.

That's a logical view...

But MS is a monopoly and their actions are viewed from a different perspective.  AIR, MS ran into similar difficulties with IE.  

I suspect that DOJ and the EU will watch this with interest.

Of course, W8 OS may fail of its own accord -- on both the desktop and tablets.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum 

 

 

Wow!  Can you disclose how many accounts/employees are covered by that $10M?

Yes, we had about 40K employees world wide with multiply locations and servers which were replicated many times over the world wide locations and you pay licensing fees for each server and user. Also the $10M include more than just outlook there were other M$ services which were terminated at the time, but this information was shared as part of the reason of moving away from M$. The other interesting part of this was the fact M$ plan to increase the licensing fees due to the companies plans to stop development future products base on other M$ products. It was tit for tat action on M$ part, so the company terminated the entire account with M$.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum 

 

 

That's a logical view...

 

But MS is a monopoly and their actions are viewed from a different perspective.  AIR, MS ran into similar difficulties with IE.  

 

I suspect that DOJ and the EU will watch this with interest.

 

Of course, W8 OS may fail of its own accord -- on both the desktop and tablets.

Still waiting for you to explain what's illegal about it.

They currently require that all computers accessing a server be properly licensed. The above simply says that Windows 8 tablets will be treated the same way. As long as other clients are treated the same way, there's nothing there to get the DOJ interested. Even a monopolist is allowed to increase their sales as long as they do it by legal means.

So please explain what's illegal about it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maestro64 

 

 

Yes, we had about 40K employees world wide with multiply locations and servers which were replicated many times over the world wide locations and you pay licensing fees for each server and user. Also the $10M include more than just outlook there were other M$ services which were terminated at the time, but this information was shared as part of the reason of moving away from M$. The other interesting part of this was the fact M$ plan to increase the licensing fees due to the companies plans to stop development future products base on other M$ products. It was tit for tat action on M$ part, so the company terminated the entire account with M$.

Curiouser and curiouser...

That MS really knows how to do "customer service"!

It's too bad that Apple doesn't have any server hardware (and enterprise support infrastructure) -- as their server OS is free with unlimited seats.

Will your company go Linux to replace the Windows Servers?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cyberzombie 

... SQL Server is a great product. But it's among a field of great products, not a stand-out.

Besides, Microsoft stole SQL Server from Sybase. Remember Sybase? No? I guess that's what happens to you when someone gets away with stealing your IP.

"In a bid to slow iPad adoption by enterprise customers ..."

sorry, but this is a silly emotional projection by AI about MS' motives. everything really isn't always about Apple, you know? $25 per iPad is not a sufficient extra amount to make any difference whatsoever in the purchasing decisions of any corporation. it's peanuts. the costs that matter are most of all total support/training costs, which amount to many hundreds of dollars per year per employee, and overall resulting employee efficiency.

what MS is actually doing is tacking on one more small charge to its lucrative enterprise services to reap some more revenue from the boom in tablet deployments by businesses. this is part of their classic 'nickel and dime' strategy for pricing those services. this way they will make some more money thanks to the expanding use of the iPad and any other tablets.

sure, they may not charge the fee for their own Windows tablets. that is accurately termed a "discount." but of course they are selling the Windows license to the tablet OEM for about the same amount anyway, so the business winds up paying something to MS either way.

all this foaming at the mouth here is much ado about nothing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DGNR8 

 

This will be a problem for MS, additional tax for the privilege to use an OS that is not geared for corporate environments.

 

Every company I work with has zero plans to migrate from 7.

 

They now have there desktops now fully functional with 7 and users finally trained.

 

There is no huge benefit for a company to spend the license fees and the training expense for the new OS they do not want, AGAIN!!!!!, in such a short period.

 

I have been beta testing the 8 and I can tell you right now this is not going to work in corporate unless they turn off tiles.

 

I see a terrible adoption rate for this version.

 

Windows 9 will fix Windows 8 like Windows 7 fixed Windows Vista.

 

I am not a Windows basher at all, I actually like Windows 7.

 

It is a most stable version of Windows since Windows 2000.

 

However Windows 8 is the biggest mistake MS has made since Windows ME.

 

They are trying to compete with Apple and Android to go after consumer market, tisk tisk … Big Mistake.

 

I won't even go into there numerous mistakes they have made in virtualization and the way they have tried to punish enviros using Citrix or VMWare

You're right.

This appears to be an incredibly stupid and clumsy move by MS, which will back fire horribly.

This is worse than shooting themselves in the foot - its more like cutting their head off to spite their face!

As it is, Windows 8 is going to be a hard, uphill sell to the enterprise sector. They have just given one more important reason for organisations NOT to move to Windows 8!

MS are not winning any friends with this farcical move. One just has to look at the overwhelming critical tenor of the posts here to see that! 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum 


The article says that non-Windows tablets will need to pay a fee and that Windows tablets will be free.
That may be an illegal use of a monopoly position to restrain trade or suppress competition.
If you are too dense/stubborn to understand that, then do a web search for
"ms ie eu lawsuit".
As to the tone of your recent responses to my posts... It is unfortunate that my posts don't meet with your satisfaction !
I have as much a right to post here as anyone... and do not seek your approval -- now, get off my back!
I hope you enjoy the company of zither and gator on my block list!l.

As to the bolded, that's NOT what it says. It says that a client license to connect to Windows server is included in the Windows RT software. As long as the amount that they allocate to server access is the same as what they charge for licenses for iPad and Android, there's no problem. Since you don't have any idea how much a Windows RT license costs, much less how much they're allocating to server licensing or how much they're charging for iPad access, your claims that it's illegal are unfounded.

As for the rest, I really couldn't care less. Since you seem to think that you can make any argument you want without evidence and people should just bow down and worship your arguments rather than ask you to back them up, I really don't care if you respond to me. I'd rather discuss things with people who are able to be rational and back up their arguments.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Secular Investor 

 

 

You're right.

 

This appears to be an incredibly stupid and clumsy move by MS, which will back fire horribly.

 

This is worse than shooting themselves in the foot - its more like cutting their head off to spite their face!

 

As it is, Windows 8 is going to be a hard, uphill sell to the enterprise sector. They have just given one more important reason for organisations NOT to move to Windows 8!

 

MS are not winning any friends with this farcical move. One just has to look at the overwhelming critical tenor of the posts here to see that! 

Why would this negatively affect anyone's move to Windows 8?

Now, it MIGHT negatively affect someone considering Windows 2012 since they might have to pay extra client license fees, but it shouldn't affect anyone buying Windows 8.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum 


I am certainly no expert in misuse of monopoly powers.
However, I did work for IBM in their heyday years and we had to attend annual awareness sessions to be sure that we did not do anything that even looked like abuse of monopoly power.
I think what would apply here, is that MS is using its dominant position in the OS marketplace to try to compete unfairly in the tablet marketplace.
This is somewhat similar to the way that MS used its OS position to compete unfairly in the browser marketplace.

But we don't know if MS is competing unfairly in the tablet space. Several people have convicted them without knowing the facts.

Let's say that MS decides to license Windows RT for $20 per unit (paid to their tablet OS unit) and adds on $10 per unit to be paid to their server unit. Then they charge $5 per iPad or Android device (paid to their server unit) for a client license.

First, the amount paid would be GREATER with the Windows RT device. Second, every Windows RT device would be paying it whether they are going to use it or not. So they could be putting their product at a disadvantage.

We just don't know enough about the terms to know if what they're doing is illegal (or even unethical) or not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by anonymouse 

 

 

Besides, Microsoft stole SQL Server from Sybase. Remember Sybase? No? I guess that's what happens to you when someone gets away with stealing your IP.

I remember it quite well...a nice implementation. Though Microsoft stole nothing - Sybase entered into an agreement with Microsoft to share source code. Once they split, MS got no more code so the implementations cleanly separated.

I believe Sybase is still used in the DoD due to a great deal (for the military.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cyberzombie 

 

 

I remember it quite well...a nice implementation. Though Microsoft stole nothing - Sybase entered into an agreement with Microsoft to share source code. Once they split, MS got no more code so the implementations cleanly separated.

 

I believe Sybase is still used in the DoD due to a great deal (for the military.)

And Sybase got? I believe the word is, screwed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jragosta 

 

 

But we don't know if MS is competing unfairly in the tablet space. Several people have convicted them without knowing the facts.

Let's say that MS decides to license Windows RT for $20 per unit (paid to their tablet OS unit) and adds on $10 per unit to be paid to their server unit. Then they charge $5 per iPad or Android device (paid to their server unit) for a client license.

First, the amount paid would be GREATER with the Windows RT device. Second, every Windows RT device would be paying it whether they are going to use it or not. So they could be putting their product at a disadvantage.

We just don't know enough about the terms to know if what they're doing is illegal (or even unethical) or not.

First of all, those sort of accounting tricks aren't going to fool anyone, should they attempt to justify themselves using your logic.

Secondly, and most to the point, the issue is that a convicted monopolist, Microsoft, it could be argued, is leveraging that monopoly position to take over other markets, which would clearly be an antitrust violation if it were deemed to be the case. So, the issue doesn't have anything to do with their position in the tablet market, it's all about their Windows monopoly and whether they are leveraging it to advance themselves in the tablet market.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SolipsismX 


But does MS have a monopoly in the appropriate context? They certainly do for a desktop OS but this license doesn't artificially support that position. Instead it helps prop up a currently non-existant tablet OS market. ...

See above. Key phrases: "convicted monopolist", "leveraging monopoly"

Quote:

Originally Posted by SolipsismX 


1) So if you were guilty in the past you are automatically guilty in the future no matter the case? I certainly don't agree with that outlook toward corporations or people.
2) What monopoly in the tablet market are they leveraging, which is what this issue is addressing? I'm being generous by saying they have 1% market share.

You're not usually this obtuse so I'll have another go at phrasing this point. No-one is suggesting MS has a monopoly in the tablet market. They do have a working monopoly in the desktop market. They question is whether they are leveraging the latter to aid them in the former. Anonymouse is not saying that, having been found guilty of monopolistic behaviour in the past, MS should pre prejudged forevermore. Rather, they are suggesting that it is in MS's character and so we shouldn’t be surprised when people suggest that they might be up to it again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by anonymouse 

 

 

First of all, those sort of accounting tricks aren't going to fool anyone, should they attempt to justify themselves using your logic.

 

Secondly, and most to the point, the issue is that a convicted monopolist, Microsoft, it could be argued, is leveraging that monopoly position to take over other markets, which would clearly be an antitrust violation if it were deemed to be the case. So, the issue doesn't have anything to do with their position in the tablet market, it's all about their Windows monopoly and whether they are leveraging it to advance themselves in the tablet market.

First, those "accounting tricks" would be absolutely legal. No need to fool anyone.

Second, even a convicted monopolist is innocent until proven guilty. As I pointed out, there is no evidence that establishes that Microsoft has done anything illegal and no one has come up with a convincing argument that they did so. All we have is a bunch of people piling on saying "it could be an antitrust violation because Microsoft is a convicted monopolist". Fortunately for them, it takes a lot more than that to convict.

If you have any evidence on how the licenses are set up, then feel free to show exactly how they've violated antitrust laws. Until then, you're only guessing without any foundation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SolipsismX 


But none of this looks anti-competivie to me. To make it more in-line with the IE bundling, if MS was giving away Windows RT and then said that this is the only way to VNC to a Windows desktop machine then I could easily make a case for MS being anti-competitive, but since they are charging a fee they are simply using common business practices... and one that I do not think will be effective, but I do see it as their choice to make, based on the available information.

But, common business practices aren't always ok for monopolists. (It's not like they aren't still a monopolist because a few years have passed.) What they are giving away are free licenses: "Buy our tablet and get a free license to connect to our monopoly operating system, which you're going to need to connect to anyway, because we have a monopoly."

Monopolists aren't allowed to use their monopolies to leverage themselves into new markets. That's exactly what they are attempting to do here, there's really no way around that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jragosta 

... After every lousy release, they get their act together and the next one is usually significantly improved.

Do you mean that from now on, even version numbers will be more or less OK (8,...), odd version numbers will suck (9,...) ?

Quote:

Originally Posted by VanFruniken 
Do you mean that from now on, even version numbers will be more or less OK (8,...), odd version numbers will suck (9,...) ?

That doesn't make any sense. Seven's good and eight is planned to suck, so it'd be even-bad, odd-good. Like the Star Trek movies.