Microsoft Signs First EU Protocol Licensee
21552
Microsoft Corp. has signed up the first licensee for the workgroup server protocols the European Commission ordered it to open up to competitors in a 2004 antitrust ruling, it said Thursday.
410161
Agrees on the need for harmonisation The European Commission has taken the first steps towards an EU-wide license for Ultra Wide Band (UWB) radio communications, by agreeing that such an approach is necessary and laying down the basic pattern of adoption.â¦
459444
Microsoft has made substantial concessions to the European Commission, finally bringing the company into compliance with a&#160;2004 antitrust ruling, the Commission said Monday.
674020
Microsoft says it will comply with sanctions imposed by the European Commission and upheld by the Court of First Instance. The EU says the software company must offer an unbundled version of Windows without Windows Media Player.
740131
(InfoWorld) - At its partner conference this week MicrosoftÂ released new tools to help partners navigate two of the company's more complicated offerings: product licensing and the Windows Vista client OS. The licensing tool, called Microsoft LicenseWise, builds upon a previously released tool for Microsoft customers, Product License Advisor. Product License Advisor helps customers configure an IT environment and generate a report online that would tell them what licenses they would need and the cost, Mike Oldham, general manager for Microsoft's worldwide licensing and pricing, said in an interview at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver. LicenseWise picks up for Microsoft's business partners where that tool leaves off, he said. It allows a partner to access a quote a customer generated in Product License Advisor, build its own pricing into it, and then generate a proposal back to the customer for how much it would cost to license those products through the partner. Microsoft's complicated licensing schemes have long been a headache for partners and customers, but the company has made a concerted effort in the past several years to simplify the process, Oldham said. For instance, just two years ago, Microsoft had 74 licensing models customers could choose from; now they have nine, he said. More information about LicenseWise can be found on Microsoft's partner Web site. The new Vista tool also is an extension of software that is already available, called Windows Vista Hardware Assessment, said Mike Sievert, corporate vice president of the Windows business group. That application helps business users see how much effort it will take to migrate desktops in a company to Vista by testing the hardware and device-driver capability of PCs against the OS and issuing reports about those results The new tool, Windows Vista Business Value Assessment, allows partners to sit down with customers to not only assess how Vista will impact their network, but also figure out how to improve the TCO (total cost of ownership) of the installation, Sievert said. TCO is "front and center on the minds of our customers" when it comes to Vista, he said. Sievert acknowledged that business customers are still in the early stages of deploying the OS, which was released to business customers last November, so it's important Microsoft articulate how to upgrade to Vista in the most cost-effective way possible.
695264
Microsoft Corp. MSFT.O on  Tuesday agreed to require only a single license for server  software that runs on computers powered by a new generation of  chips that squeeze multiple processors into a single package.
164585
It has been "Issues Week" all week for Microsoft, and Thursday, the company took on the dreaded interoperability issue. But its choice of message was called into question a bit yesterday after Microsoft boasted of having signed up its first official customer for its interoperability IP licenses: Quest Software.
558057
Microsoft Corp  ended three  years of resistance on Monday and finally agreed to comply with  a landmark 2004 antitrust decision by the European Commission.
630239
Microsoft agrees to comply with the European Commission's anti-monopoly ruling against it.
306988
The UK&#39;s National Health Service (NHS) has signed a software licensing deal with Microsoft Corp. that the NHS says will provide for the development of a user interface specifically designed for the organization
215644
InfoWorld - Microsoft released its first software designed specifically to manage virtual machines on a network Thursday&#160;and tweaked licensing for its system-management products to take into account virtualization.
654662
Under threat of new multimillion fines, Microsoft Corp. said Thursday that it had signed up its first licensee for a scheme EU regulators told it to set up three years ago to share code that helps servers work with the Windows operating platform.
652863
(InfoWorld) - Microsoft has clarified how licensing for its current version of Windows Server works when paired with virtualization software. However, customers may face a whole new set of licensing rules once the next version, Windows Server 2008, is released later this year. In a white paper called "Licensing Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 to Run with Virtualization Technologies," Microsoft outlines clearly how to license the current version of Windows Server -- Windows Server 2003 R2 -- for specific third-party virtualization technology, including VMware ESX, VMware Vmotion and SWsoft Virtuozzo. It also explains licensing for Microsoft's own System Center Virtual Machine Manager. The document can be found on a Web page that also includes previously released virtualization calculators that help customers determine the cost of Windows Server licensing in various virtualization scenarios. Virtualization has complicated server OS pricing because it allows more than one instance of server software to run on a single server, while traditional OS pricing has been per server, assuming that only one version of an OS can run on one piece of hardware. Virtualization allows software to be emulated via a virtual machine, and so run without having to be physically installed. But even if Microsoft has done enough to clarify how its current version of Windows Server should be licensed for virtualization scenarios, customers could find themselves needing new guidelines once Windows Server 2008 is released, something Microsoft expects to do by the end of the year. Formerly code-named Longhorn, the next version of Windows Server will have virtualization technology built in, which could preclude the need for third-party virtualization software. "We believe most customers will choose to use Windows Server virtualization, which comes as a role within Windows Server 2008," said Microsoft spokesman Patrick O'Rourke. "But customers still have the option to use third-party server virtualization software on Windows Server 2008." Pricing for Windows Server 2008 has not yet been announced. According to the Microsoft white paper, current virtualization pricing for Windows Server 2003 R2 is as follows: Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition (SE) allows a customer to run only one instance of the software in either a physical or virtual way on a server. Users need to assign an SE license for each running instance of Windows Server on a system. Customers have more flexibility with the enterprise and datacenter editions of Windows Server 2003, however. They can run one physical instance of Windows Server and up to four simultaneous virtual instances with one Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition license, and can run unlimited physical or virtual versions of the software when Windows Server 2003 R2 Datacenter Edition is licensed for every physical processor in a server Windows Server 2008 is currently available in a beta 3 version.
33935
Microsoft signed a rare deal with an open source software group, taking a step towards meeting sanctions imposed by the European Commission for antitrust violations.
217748
Company introduces its unified network identification system and strengthens its ties to Microsoft with a similar package tailored for Windows.
88403
By ANICK JESDANUN NEW YORK - Smaller and newer businesses will now be able to get security certificates that trigger a green address bar in Microsoft browsers under new rules ratified this week.
147474
Microsoft has modified Vista for release in Europe to meet European Commission requirements.