Microsoft Will Squeeze Datacenters On Price of Windows Server 274
Nerval's Lobster writes "Microsoft plans to raise the price of the Datacenter edition of the upcoming R2 release of Windows Server 2012 by 28 percent, adding to what analysts call a record number of price increases for enterprise software products from Redmond. According to licensing data sheets available for download from the Windows Server 2012 R2 Website (PDF), the price of a single license of Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter will be $6,155, compared to $4,809 today—plus the cost of a Client Access Licenses for every user or device connecting to the server. News of the increase was posted yesterday by datacenter virtualization and security specialist Aidan Finn, a six-time Microsoft MVP who works for Dublin-based value added reseller MicroWarehouse Ltd. and has done work for clients including Amdahl, Fujitsu and Barclays. The increase caps off a year filled with a record number of price increases for Microsoft enterprise software, according to a Tweet yesterday from Microsoft software licensing analyst Paul DeGroot of Pica Communications."
Re:I'm not that surprised. (Score:5, Interesting)
Well it's too late. If you need a Windows Datacenter licenses (e.g. for new hardware) then you don't really have a lot of choice, even if you do want to use 2012 or 2008. We have ours on SA. Even with a price hike, it's still a pretty good deal. What's more newsworthy is they have reduced the virtualisation count for Enterprise (down from 4 to 2) and gone to a per-CPU price.
Those businesses that are using Datacenter probably wont notice the actual price hike so much... You only run Datacenter on some serious hardware. (e.g. 20 core, 512GB RAM etc. and there are relatively few requirements in a single org), which is why I think the price hike is overdue. This is the Microsoft equivilant of the VMWare VSphere 5 VMEM fiasco... Something tells me Microsoft are in a better position than VMWARE though.
Jason
Re:I'm not that surprised. (Score:5, Interesting)
R2 doesn't deliver any outstanding new features, but with higher and higher consolidation ratios this was pretty much inevitable, we've gone from 72GB to 144GB to 384GB of ram in our hosts in 3.5 years while the cost of the hardware has actually dropped. Since datacenter edition allows unlimited virtualization that means people need fewer license and hence to keep up revenue costs per license rise. Trust me, the other MS prices from last fall had a MUCH larger impact on most enterprises EA renewal than this little increase will.
Microsoft layoffs down the road? (Score:4, Interesting)
These dramatic price hikes look like Microsoft is working to stem the tide of massive losses with increased revenue in their core product domains. They are running out of options as each new offering falls flat on its face over and over again. I wouldn't be surprised if there is some significant trimming of "non-essential" personnel in the next few years to further boost the quarterly profits.
Thank you Microsoft (Score:3, Interesting)
Thank you Microsoft. This makes implementing enterprise strategy so much easier. So let's see.. in the past year we've ditched Microsoft CRM completely. We got rid of 2 SQL Server instances. We will purchase SQL 2012, but with only half the CAL's. These price increases make it so much easier to consider other options.
Re:I'm not that surprised. (Score:4, Interesting)
I think you've mis-calculated.. $1764 gets your 4 VMs. $12310 gets you unlimited VMs. So it's under 24 VMs (12 CPU licenses) that you might be better off running with many essential licenses. Of course the one advantage to running with multiple standard licenses is that you could having many more CPUs in the server than you could afford with Datacentre.
I expect this is what the plan is, this new pricing makes 4 way servers possibly interesting again and one wa or the other increases Windows licensing revenue.
What's also nice is they finally done away with the crippled standard vs enterprise nonsense. Paying almost double for one tiny feature (like ts session balancing) gets a bit annoying on a large TS farm. There are some silver linings here.
Jason
Re:Fine with me (Score:4, Interesting)
A Microsoft exit strategy is a pretty hard thing to do. It's funny to me because even though ALL of the core infrastructure products my company runs from Cisco Unity phone and voicemail, Cisco's NAC, VMWare to Falconstor and others ALL run Linux, my boss's boss and my boss and his peers have knocked Linux as a toy. We had the option of running our Documentum servers on Linux or Windows and they went with Windows even though Oracle would have fully support Linux. The hit in performance and resources of Windows has resulted in a Documentum collection that just doesn't perform as well as it should or could.
The short of it is that they don't know enough about Linux to want to go with it. The sad reality is that they actually don't know enough about Windows to make a reasonable decision which favors Windows either -- they just expect it to work because everything else is Windows to them... except for the core infrastructure.
That's right... you'll never catch me driving a crappy Toyota car. I'll drive a Lexus any and every day.
Idiots.
Now Microsoft on the desktop is another matter... a lot harder to get away from.
Re:Fine with me (Score:5, Interesting)
No.. I don't think Red Hat will see that much, some, but most folks will be heading to Cent-OS if they are Red Hat shops and start feeling the cost pinch too much. My guess is that ALL Linux distributions and vendors will see an uptick in their server installs, starting with the ones that have the latest SAMBA version on the install media.
Where I do like Red Hat's support, it is wildly expensive and overkill for most low end shops who are not trying to push the envelop of the bleeding edge. Cent-OS is by definition the same thing as Red Hat offerings, minus the up-line's copyrighted graphics and trademarks and a whole lot of subscription fees. You might have to wait days, weeks or even months for the latest release, but they eventually come.
The guys that really should be jacking up the prices are the training houses that get paid to convert Windows admins into Linux Admins. THAT'S where the money will be made when Micro$oft starts turning the thumb screws to hard.
Actually... I'm betting Micro$oft has studied this and figures that the increase in fees will offset any defections to Linux they may see going forward. I'd figure that they are likely pretty close to being right and should they see too many folks defecting, they will quickly change the price or do some rebate deal to stop it. Micro$oft won't loose on this deal.. Trust me.
Re:Fine with me (Score:5, Interesting)
So you mean this is why Microsoft's net income has basically TRIPLED over the last 10 years?
Profit isn't really the best measurement of the success of a company in an expanding industry. Even if your profit increased, if over the same period you've lost market share, you've essentially failed. Not that I have any clue what MS market share looks like over the last 10 years; you still might be correct.
Software companies can be extremely abusive. (Score:3, Interesting)
Adobe is doing the same thing: Adobe kills Creative Suite, goes subscription-only. [cnet.com] You will no longer be allowed to have Adobe CS software on your own computer. NSA magnet, and far more expensive. As you are designing a new web site, the NSA will be viewing what you are doing. Or, of course, people who work for Adobe.
Re: Fine with me (Score:4, Interesting)
Car analogy (Score:2, Interesting)
Son, please tell me you do not work for a for profit company?
Let me explain it for you. Lets say there is a race and the MS Soapbox Express is hurtling along faster and faster every moment. Sounds like they are doing really well. Problem is that the race is on a downward sloping hill and everyone else brought engines. The fate of our beloved soapbox racer is suddenly not looking good.
Now, son, do you understand how increasing profit is irrelevant to the measure of success if not compared to the competition in a growing market?
slipstream Windows Azure into the enterprise? (Score:4, Interesting)
Hello,
While raising the price on an enterprise product is a good way to boost short-term revenue, it seems to me that companies might begin to seek less expensive alternatives. In this case, though, that might not be Linux at all.
I haven't seen any mention of this so far, but I have to wonder if the price increase might be an attempt to make enterprises look at Windows Azure [windowsazure.com] as an alternative to continuing to run their own datacenters.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky