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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

#31
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…

You seem to think simply re-stating the facts is enough to dismiss the article. But you forgot to tell us WHY it is acceptable for Microsoft to charge their customers a premium for using their fully purchased licenses on a cloud provider of their choice rather than dedicated physical hardware. And why it is ok for Microsoft to create an artificial monopoly for these licenses via Azure Dedicated Host. Microsoft sold l…

Are you arguing against a business being able to update their licenses, as they see fit, to adjust to major changes in the market? That doesn't seem reasonable.

As a consumer, if you don't like it, you can always migrate away from Windows.

Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#32
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…

You seem to think simply re-stating the facts is enough to dismiss the article. But you forgot to tell us WHY it is acceptable for Microsoft to charge their customers a premium for using their fully purchased licenses on a cloud provider of their choice rather than dedicated physical hardware. And why it is ok for Microsoft to create an artificial monopoly for these licenses via Azure Dedicated Host. Microsoft sold l…

It's acceptable because enough people are going to accept it.

Spend a bit of time using a FOSS stack and stop creating anything new on the legacy proprietary stuff, it will solve itself.

Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#33
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…

You seem to think simply re-stating the facts is enough to dismiss the article. But you forgot to tell us WHY it is acceptable for Microsoft to charge their customers a premium for using their fully purchased licenses on a cloud provider of their choice rather than dedicated physical hardware. And why it is ok for Microsoft to create an artificial monopoly for these licenses via Azure Dedicated Host. Microsoft sold l…

What irks me about this is I like to ride as close as I can to the fantasy of SDE == 8 hours of problem solving.

Meetings, sprint ceremonies, interruptions I've come to deal with as baggage that comes with the territory. But when I have to blow the dust off my olde Microsoft Licensing Nits and Pitfalls Tome and play license-lawyer again, that really sucks the life out of me.

Windows Server is a great product and I want to pay great money and use it without worrying about where in the cloud it's floating. Why even cut a distinction about what kind of machine is hosting your product, virtual or metal? Nevermind even talking about who owns that machine being an issue.

Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#34
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.

Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to think simply re-stating the facts is enough to dismiss the article. But you forgot to tell us WHY it is acceptable for Microsoft to charge their customers a premium for using their fully purchased licenses on a cloud provider of their choice rather than dedicated physical hardware. And why it is ok for Microsoft to create an artificial monopoly for these licenses via Azure Dedicated Host. Microsoft sold l…

Why is it okay for Nvidia to disable parts of a fully working chip in order to sell it as a more popular and cheaper part? Why is it okay for them to disable features in the PC vs Workstation drivers on the same hardware that you bought? Why is it okay for Apple to legally restrict OS X from running inside a VM or on a PC? Welcome to price differentiation.

If one wishes to price like that, they do it from the start. We have more than enough history to show that you don't offer customers something for one price scheme and then change it in the middle to get even more money out of them. It doesn't work and only causes problems.

Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to think simply re-stating the facts is enough to dismiss the article. But you forgot to tell us WHY it is acceptable for Microsoft to charge their customers a premium for using their fully purchased licenses on a cloud provider of their choice rather than dedicated physical hardware. And why it is ok for Microsoft to create an artificial monopoly for these licenses via Azure Dedicated Host. Microsoft sold l…

Why is it okay for Nvidia to disable parts of a fully working chip in order to sell it as a more popular and cheaper part? Why is it okay for them to disable features in the PC vs Workstation drivers on the same hardware that you bought? Why is it okay for Apple to legally restrict OS X from running inside a VM or on a PC? Welcome to price differentiation.

Just to clarify, Apple does allow you to run macOS inside VMs provided they are running on Apple hardware.

But yes, the EULA restricts running macOS on non-Apple hardware.

Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to think simply re-stating the facts is enough to dismiss the article. But you forgot to tell us WHY it is acceptable for Microsoft to charge their customers a premium for using their fully purchased licenses on a cloud provider of their choice rather than dedicated physical hardware. And why it is ok for Microsoft to create an artificial monopoly for these licenses via Azure Dedicated Host. Microsoft sold l…

> But you forgot to tell us WHY it is acceptable for Microsoft to charge their customers a premium for using their fully purchased licenses on a cloud provider of their choice rather than dedicated physical hardware. And why it is ok for Microsoft to create an artificial monopoly for these licenses via Azure Dedicated Host. Because they wrote and own the software you are interested in licensing. If you don't like the…

s/principal/principle/g

If they stop people making money from it, it's not open source any more.

Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#38
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…

‘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 .. some customers buy "on-premises licenses" without mobility rights, and MSFT used to let them use those licenses on outsourced hardware’

Seems perfectly clear to me:

“Microsoft has introduced a preview of Azure Dedicated Host, which provides a physical server hosted on Azure and not shared with other customers.”, ref

Microsoft has introduced it's own dedicated hardware.

“Alongside this new service, the company has made licensing changes that will make Microsoft software more expensive for some customers of AWS, Google and Alibaba.”, ref

And made it more expensive for “running Windows Server on any cloud that isn’t Azure”.

ref: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/08/05/microsoft_licensing...

Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#39
post #3

Now I am curious, who runs production customer facing apps on Azure? I'm assuming many people do given that Azure is second after AWS in market share or is that really just mostly corporate IT servers?

When folks say Azure is just behind AWS what does that mean? I don't see nearly that many Azure large scale workloads or is something else counting as Azure I'm not aware of?

It used to count Office 365 as well, not sure if that's changed.

Re: Microsoft Screws Azure Customers and Its Own Advocates Alike

#40
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.

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