Ballmer: Don't Expect Simpler Licensing Soon

nk497 writes "Steve Ballmer has admitted Microsoft's licensing is too complicated and contains too much fine print, but has no plans to change it at the risk of angering shareholders — and even customers who benefit from the confusion. "I'm sure we have fine print we don't need. We're not saints," he said, adding that customers have a way of figuring out how to pay the least amount of cash possible to use Microsoft's software. "Customers always find an approach which pays us less money.""

This is a non-issue for Microsoft's Customers

[mpapet]

I'll give you a hint, their customers are not the admins who actually have to comprehend and create policy/procedure to abide by License terms. They have two primary customers.
1. The retail consumer who doesn't read EULA's and willfully violates them.
2. The purchasing manager/executive class.

Sysadmins aren't on that list.

Moreover, Mr. Ballmer is giving the implicit nod to violate the terms of the license agreements. Guess who loses on that deal? The sysadmin!

The Gates Comeback

[kiehlster]

I said this once before and am still convinced. All this self-inflicted damage is a secret plan to have Bill Gates make a comeback, just like Steve Jobs, and "save" Microsoft. If Bill isn't initially included in this plan of theirs, Ballmer is certainly ensuring that Gates loses enough of his stock gains to force him to come back and work again. Between the goofy ad campaigns and Ballmer's "Microsoft DOES suck" speeches, why wouldn't Microsoft begin to crumble. From the inside.

Re:Obligatory Open Source comment

[Nerdposeur]

I bought a Dell with Ubuntu back in April. It was cheaper than the equivalent Windows machine AND came with a bigger monitor.

Re:Absolutly

[Runaway1956]

The number one problem with Microsoft's licensing scheme is just that. The licensing scheme itself. "This product is licensed, not sold." I call "BULLSHIT!" I bought it, just like I would buy a damned BOOK! I have the physical floppies and CD's for several MS operating systems. They are mine, and not MS's. I will use them as I see fit, as often as I see fit, and in any manner that I see fit to use them. End of story. When MS understands that concept, then we might get along. When they understand that I can and will decompile and disasseble if and when I see fit, and that I might rebuild any part, or even all of their code to my liking, then we might get along. Sure, if I build a better kernel, or even a better DLL, I'll credit MS for their original work - but they need to understand that it is my RIGHT to look inside the freaking DLL, .exe, or whatever I choose to look at. Screw Microsoft.

M$ confusing licensing doing us a favor

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

Part of the reason that several of my past companies/clients drifted away from Microsoft was due to the incredibly complex licensing. You can do XYZ for this price, but only if you have up to N seats. After N+1 seats, you pay using an entirely new cost schedule (could be higher...could be lower)....etc. It got to the point where our "Microsoft sales rep" literally had to periodically visit us and attempt to explain how we could do a project with their tools while not running afoul of some obscure CAL fee that nobody even knew about. Combine that with the never ending upgrade merry-go-round and it is easy to see why companies just throw up their hands and look for a way out.

Re:Ballmer: "We're not saints"

[Sockatume]

I hate to say it but your post is an example of fanboyish ranting distracting people from the true nature of the problem. A recent "last time" in most of those cases is actually trivial to find. Microsoft's badness isn't a consistent history of doing everything exactly wrong, it's that they do almost everything right up to the point where it affects their bottom line. Then they'll make decisions which protect their market dominance, decisions which have nasty consequences for everyone else. It's easy to think of a time when Microsoft acted nice, because they need that to shift units. It's the times when they act bad that are worth bringing up.

For completeness:

When was the last time Microsoft did something the customers wanted, instead of forcing them to "take it or leave it".

Probably the Xbox Live software updates consistently dealing with bugs and improving functionality. Pick one.

When was the last time any Office application didn't brake file compatibility with previous versions.

2007 allows you to default to the old Office file formats. They work about the same as in Office 2003.

When was the last time you felt like you actually own a Microsoft software product, and don't have to rent it AND justify yourself every time you need to install it on a new computer?

Office 2007, again. I took advantage of the multi-PC licencing in the EULA which nobody reads.

Last time some Microsoft protocol didn't break compatibility with competing, or even older own protocols?

How can somebody's new protocol break an unrelated other protocol? Or do you mean their implimentation of an existing protocol? I can't answer a query this ill-phrased.

Re:Absolutly

[kelzer]

Well, considering that you've just confessed to breaking a number of laws (DCMA, copyright, etc.) you may need to change your Slashdot username to Runaway2009.

Re:Bad summary. And bad article.

[onefriedrice]

Ballmer does appear to be an idiot. Under his watch, we've seen the Xbox with its expensive warranty, the lovely Zune, Office 2007, and Vista. I consider these failures that I'm not certain would have occurred if Gates was still in charge. Okay, I'm sure at least Vista made a boat-load of money and therefore can't be classified as a failure as far as the markets are concerned, but that's only because of their market position. Ballmer won't be able to get this free ride forever as other alternatives slowly gain traction in the market.

From what I've seen, Ballmer tries really hard, but he's just not that great of a CEO. Just my opinion.

Who are the real customers?

[WoollyMittens]

The only customers of a publicly traded company are the shareholders. The consumers are a natural resource to exploit.

Re:FUD

[conureman]

When I went to school, I told them I didn't want to do Windows, but wanted to learn Unix admin. They said it was "much to complicated for a novice" and I "had to learn Windows first to understand the basics". Translation: they didn't have a Unix curriculum.

Re:Absolutly

[IntlHarvester]

Uh, the vast majority of businesses are just fine paying for MS licenses to run software. There are a few all Linux/Unix shops out there but they are by far in the minority.

That's almost entirely beside the point though. IBM will sell you $15K/seat licences for WebSphere for Linux, or you could fire up notepad and develop Windows stuff for free.

Re:Building PC's

[Runaway1956]

Mmmm - yes, you make a point. But, I'm not certain that we understand each other's points, fully. Yes, Asus is a reputable mainboard company. One of the best boards I've ever owned is an Asus. It's already 7 years old, I've upgraded the BIOS twice, added peripherals that weren't supported when it was new - it's a great board. BUT - the wife's semi-successful homebrew is based on an Asus K8N board. It isn't as high quality as my SK8V, it was built for the abandoned socket 754, and most importantly, you won't find it in any overclocker's forum archives as an overclocker's dream. (In fact, it is marginally over clockable, but onboard video and the CPU both suffer from heat stress, and freeze up with a stock GPU and CPU coolers in place.)

So, I stress, don't rely as much on brand name, as the reviews in the over clocker's forums. If Mad Gamer posts about the outstanding stability of Asus model XXxX when overclocked at 5 Ghz, buy it. The wildly overclocked board that lasts him 6 months to 1 year will probably last for ten years in more normal service.

Microsoft's licensing policy is to screw users

[Whisperwolf]

They have no intention of making it more simple. Case in point: I often see computers come in for repair that need a reinstallation. Where this is the case, we go ahead and reinstall from a disk we hold here providing there is a valid certificate of authenticity on the case or the customer can provide one. Recently, Microsoft stopped allowing the validation of that. The disk we were installing from would still accept the certificate of authenticity number on the side of the case, but then failed to activate. Microsoft's explanation for this is that you can no longer reinstall windows from ANY disk except the one originally supplied with the machine (convenient for Microsoft if, like many computers these days, it didn't actually come with physical disks but instead allowed the user to create "rescue disks" if they could figure out how) and that if you no longer have or never were provided with the original disk that came with the machine, then you have to buy a completely new license from scratch. This is a complete rip-off. If someone has a genuinely installed Windows, then they have bought the license to use one copy on one machine at any one time. This means they should be allowed to reload that one copy from any source should they suffer a machine crash, and should not be tied exclusively to the actual physical disk that may or may not have been supplied with the machine. The real reason MS licensing is so complicated is so that MS can move the goalposts whenever they see an opportunity to make money. The reason it's so complicated is to hide every new initiative to rip off their customers.

Re:over charge

[vintagepc]

"Customers always find an approach which pays us less money."

You will always lose a small percentage of sales to piracy, no matter what your software is. However, somebody needs to realize that if
a) people pirate your software more than average, or
b) people are looking to use loopholes to pay less, or
c) people switch to other software,

then any (or in this case, all) of the following are true:
1) your software is bloated crap, and you need to fire designers/coders
2) it's not worth the amount you're asking, and you need to fire marketing
3) There are too many bloody versions for joe schmoe to keep track of, (and marketing should still get the shaft)
4) your competitors have a cheaper and/or better product (in which case you do like MS and spread fud about the competition)
5) you need to develop a modern business model other than a price-gouging ~85% monopoly.(which involves the painful process of removing your head from your ass)
'Nuff said.