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Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

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Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#61

Post by Nullabillity »

Clubber wrote: post #26
Someone1234 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes it even more anti-competitive, since it makes it readily apparent that they're leveraging one area (Server Licensing) to artificially stimulate another (Enterprise Cloud vis-a-vis Azure Vs. Azure). Hopefully the US Government doesn't deem Windows Server a monopoly or they're in deep trouble.

I wouldn't think Windows Server is anywhere close to a monopoly, unless you define it narrowly, like Windows Server is a monopoly for Exchange installs or something like that.

They're a monopoly for companies that are already locked into Win32 or Win32-specific applications.

Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#62

Post by Raidion »

tedivm wrote: post #34
Traster wrote: post #7

Well this article doesn't seem very good. Not least because the author seems perfectly willing to not actually explain the detail, and then jump to conclusions. Having read the actual detailed article what seems to be happening is that some customers buy "on-premises licenses" without mobility rights, and MSFT used to let them use those licenses on outsourced hardware. But people were using those licenses to just put…

It's worse than you're describing- Microsoft is charging one licensing price if you're on their cloud but another price if you're on someone elses. This anticompetitive behavior is what we expected from Microsoft in the 90s and early 2000s.

You say it like that and it sounds bad, but you say it like "Microsoft offers a discount if you bundle cloud and license spending" and it sounds pretty fair to me.

Goodness knows there are a lot of other cloud options than Microsoft. If you're tightly coupled with one vendor you're gonna be at their mercy.

Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#63

Post by Ididntdothis »

celticmusic wrote: post #46
grezql wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.net core, which the flagship of the future, is cross platform. I am running it in ubuntu production environment for an App i made. Very stable.

Over time what you're implying here is true, but in the short term there are a lot of people stuck on .net Framework and it's difficult to get off of it. It should absolutely be done, any company with old .net framework solutions that are not actively looking at moving them to .net core is being foolish. But lots of companies are foolish.

“It should absolutely be done, any company with old .net framework solutions that are not actively looking at moving them to .net core is being foolish.”

If it only were that easy to move to Core. I thought I could sneak that transition into a few projects but there are a ton of little obstacles that make such an effort lots of work.

Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#64

Post by Nullabillity »

misterdoubt wrote: post #47
lurker458 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

applying price differentiation on a product that you already sold to double dip is pretty scummy

Perhaps, but that's not happening here. The Windows license change doesn't retroactively apply to existing licenses.

It does apply to existing customers as soon as they need to scale out. Well, unless they decide to pay down their tech debt and get out ASAP.

Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#65

Post by bogwog »

abarringer wrote: post #45
bogwog wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why anyone would even want to use Windows. You're taking on a huge risk for very little to no benefit. It's not like there's a shortage of engineers familiar with Linux in the world.

Just because you run windows doesn't mean you like it. SQL Server, vendor app requirements etc. A windowless world is about as likely as a paperless bathroom and for the same reasons. Also, not sure what huge risk you are talking about here besides licensing pricing?

> Also, not sure what huge risk you are talking about here besides licensing pricing?

The many business risks of being 100% tied down to a single provider (Microsoft). Licensing is one, but also what would happen if Microsoft decided to kill off a service that your product depends on? You'd have to invest in finding an alternative and rewriting your software. Or what if Microsoft sells that service to another company which is actually directly competing with you, and then decides to stop providing third party access, or looks at your usage metrics/data to gain a competitive advantage over you. Or maybe Microsoft gets an incompetent CEO which drives the company to bankruptcy, and Windows and all their services you depend on are sold to hundreds of different companies which you now need to deal with.

Building your software on Linux or BSD means you don't have to worry about any of that since you own everything. It's like you're getting vertical integration for free. It's a no-brainer.

Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#66

Post by nightski »

meesterdude wrote: post #50
whoisjuan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nobody runs Windows Server on the Cloud" is a massive stretch. It may not be a leader but it's definitely used https://www.datanyze.com/market-share/operating-systems/wind... Also if your stack is .NET you definitely need Windows Server. Even Amazon has some things built on .NET/Windows Server (woot.com)

I know a few .NET stacks being served up on linux servers (no MS DB, obviously)

Why is it obvious no MS DB? SQL Server runs on Linux.

Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#67

Post by bogwog »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #53
bogwog wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why anyone would even want to use Windows. You're taking on a huge risk for very little to no benefit. It's not like there's a shortage of engineers familiar with Linux in the world.

Depends on the app. Legacy LoB / Enterprise stuff is very Windows-centric. For example, think of the huge sub-industry of “component vendors” that service the legacy Visual Basic ecosystem. If your CTO says they want that LoB system _in the cloud_ without rewriting it then you’re in the market for a Windows cloud provider.

I get the legacy part of it, but for new development I don't see the benefit. Even if Microsoft offers to subsidize hosting if you use Windows or one of their services, that obviously would not last forever.

Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#68

Post by m0xte »

abarringer wrote: post #45
bogwog wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why anyone would even want to use Windows. You're taking on a huge risk for very little to no benefit. It's not like there's a shortage of engineers familiar with Linux in the world.

Just because you run windows doesn't mean you like it. SQL Server, vendor app requirements etc. A windowless world is about as likely as a paperless bathroom and for the same reasons. Also, not sure what huge risk you are talking about here besides licensing pricing?

Not the original poster but from experience of running windows on everything for over 20 years the risks are: being treated like a criminal until you prove yourself innocent, unreliable and difficult to automate tooling, half-baked clones of ideologies as a me to proposition rather than a product direction, absolutely no support worth mentioning even when you pay for it in organs, schizophrenic roadmaps which never materialise or turn up half baked, pretending to care about the community while shitting on it with telemetry and products being yanked that you rely on. Then QA so bad that it makes me wonder if there was any. I feel like most of my time and cash investment has been thrown into putting a marketing facade over this steaming pile of feces.

Now there's a pile of legacy on top of Windows which is unavoidable but at this point I couldn't possibly consider building a product from scratch on top of something which has been basically a 20 year long bad trip. I will also push for everything to be moved off their platforms at every available opportunity.

On numerous occasions the pure frustration caused by MSFT has nearly made me quit the industry entirely.

To confirm, everything is greener on the other side. I do that too.

Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#69

Post by ineedasername »

In a situation like this, if you're not willing to take the price hit on the chin in the long term, there's about two options: Change your cloud provider (to Azure) or change your platform (away from windows). It seems MS is betting there will be, on net, more people who take it on the chin &/or switch to Azure. But even if they're right, there will still be some loss of marketshare for those staying with AWS & ditching Windows. This seems like a Bad Thing in the long term, no matter the specifics of other short term gains.

Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#70

Post by naikrovek »

ryanisnan wrote: post #40
Traster wrote: post #7

Well this article doesn't seem very good. Not least because the author seems perfectly willing to not actually explain the detail, and then jump to conclusions. Having read the actual detailed article what seems to be happening is that some customers buy "on-premises licenses" without mobility rights, and MSFT used to let them use those licenses on outsourced hardware. But people were using those licenses to just put…

If your license differentiates between running on a physical box of my own versus someone else's physical box (cloud computing), I don't want to use your software. I think most developers would tend to agree.

Don't use it, then.
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