Microsoft clarifies Windows Server virtual licensing
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Buy more, get more The beefier your Windows Server license the less copies you'll need for running Microsoft's operating system in virtualized environments.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft continues to tweak its volume licensing programs to make it easier for business customers to purchase the company's software in bulk. This week, Microsoft said it was reducing the length of three of its volume-licensing agreements between 10 percent to 50 percent, changes that affect the Enterprise Agreement, Enterprise Subscription, Select License, Open Value, Open Value Subscription and Open License volume licensing agreements. Microsoft also has made it easier for customers to navigate license information and sign up online, the company said. The changes will be implemented in the course of its fiscal year 2008, which began July 1. Microsoft has been amending different aspects of its volume licensing programs over the last several years in an effort to make them less complicated and expensive for customers. Volume licensing is how business customers buy Microsoft products. The company also faces pressure from changing industry dynamics where products are being licensed on a subscription basis rather than through complicated, long-term licenses. Microsoft is keeping up with some of these changes by increasingly offering business software as subscription-based services but still has a history of complex product licensing to contend with. Specifically, Microsoft said it will reduce the number of price points and SKUs for each of its volume licensing programs, which will simplify customers' search for specific product pricing. Currently, Microsoft has more than 8 million price points worldwide, which makes it confusing for customers to navigate through them. To reduce the number of price points, individual product SKUs with the same pricing will change to one term, called "Single Language," the company said. For example, a product like the SQL Server database has versions for different languages. If the product is only for one language, such as English, and is priced the same as other versions for other languages, the products now will be listed as "SQL Server Single Language" rather than with each language version listed individually, Microsoft said. According to Microsoft, just doing this reduces price points in the Select program by 51 percent and the number of product SKUs by 72 percent. In the Open Value program, price points are reduced by 50 percent and SKUs by 51 percent, and in the Open License program, prices points are reduced by 32 percent and the number of SKUs by 33 percent, the company said. Microsoft also has made some content changes to all of its volume licensing agreements to streamline the language used in themÂ and has added a table of contents and summary titles to agreements to make them easier for customers to navigate. In addition to the changes, Microsoft also is launching a Volume Licensing Service Center online that will help customers manage their volume licenses. The service center will provide downloads to software that customers are eligible to receive under their agreements, and also allow them to view and request Volume Licensing Product Keys for software in their agreements. Additionally, customers can calculate license statements on the Web site.
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(InfoWorld) - MicrosoftÂ has released the second beta of a new server aimed at giving users a way to connect and manage Windows Vista PCs, devices, and printers in their homes. Beta 2 of Windows Home Server, which already has been tested by more than 1,000 Microsoft employees, software and hardware partners, is now available, Microsoft said. The company soon plans to extend the product's beta program, and those who want to test beta 2 of the OS can sign up at this Web site. Microsoft also unveiled the Windows Home Server Blog, which will track the progress of the software's development, oin Monday. Additionally, Charlie Kinder, Microsoft general manager of Windows Home Server, also maintains a blog where he will post about the product. Microsoft introduced Windows Home ServerÂ at theÂ Consumer Electronics Show in Las VegasÂ in January. Hewlett-Packard will have the first server built on the OS, a product called the HP MediaSmart Server, later this year. Currently, Microsoft only plans to make Windows Home Server available through OEMs, not sell it directly to consumers.
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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.
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Faced with continued customer foot-dragging on license renewals and deployment, Microsoft said Friday has decided to offer &quot;custom&quot; Windows NT 4.0 support contracts to enterprises that still haven&#39;t migrated to later versions of the network operating
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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.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft released its first software designed specifically to manage virtual machines on a network ThursdayÂ and tweaked licensing for its system-management products to take into account virtualization. System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007, which has been in the works for about a year and a half, has been released to manufacturing and will be generally available in October as part of Microsoft's System Server Management Center suite of products, the company said. The new product is built on the same architecture as other products in the enterprise version of the suite -- which include Data Protection Manager, Operations Manager, and Configuration Manager -- and is aimed specifically at managing virtual machines in a data center that runs Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2, the current version of Microsoft's server virtualization technology, said Patrick O'Rourke, group manager, Windows Infrastructure. "Customers now can use the same tools to manage both virtual and physical assets [on the network]," he said. Microsoft also has changed the licensing model for its for its System Center Server Management Suite Enterprise, making it available for $860 per host server -- which means the actual server that hosts any instances of virtual software -- plus two years of Microsoft's Software Assurance plan. Previously, System Center software was licensed per device being managed in the data center, O'Rourke said. The new licensing should make managing virtualized environments with Microsoft's software more cost-effective for customers, he said. Microsoft has been developing and fine-tuning its virtualization strategy over the past several years to keep up with virtualization leader VMWare and others, as well as to serve the needs of large customers who increasingly are using virtualization in their data centers. However, the company's strategy has predictably hit some road bumps. Microsoft is developing next-generation virtualization technology, code-named Viridian, that takes advantage of virtualization-optimized processors from Intel and AMD and will help keep the company up to speed with competitors. However, though Viridian will be a component of Windows Server 2008, it won't be available until six months after that new OS is released. And because Microsoft recently pushed back the release of Windows Server 2008 to the first quarter of next year, Viridian's release is nearly a year away. The company also decided earlier this year to pull out some originally planned features of Viridian due to timing concerns. In the meantime, customers can use a combination of Microsoft's stand-alone Virtual Server and its System Center products to install and manage both virtual and physical machines in the data center. Microsoft also is planning a mid-market version of Virtual Machine Manager, called Workgroup edition, for release in January. The software will cost $499 per host server. Microsoft also plans to extend the capabilities of the next version of Virtual Machine Manager so that it not only supports Windows Server virtualization technologies but also third-party virtualization from VMware and XenSource Inc., O'Rourke said. A beta of that software is expected to be available around the same time as Windows Server 2008, and Microsoft plans to update its roadmap then as well.
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Microsoft Corp. next month will release Virtual Server 2005, its first foray into server virtualization and a key element of the broad management platform the company is creating for Windows.
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A Microsoft representative made it quite clear what Vista pirates can expect to happen to their unlicensed installations.
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Microsoft plans to block access to some features by unlicensed versions of OS.
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Microsoft released its first service pack for Systems Management Server 2003 with support for Windows XP SP2 and Virtual Server 2005.
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To help ensure that Windows Server 2008 won't lack for compatible software, Microsoft released a beta version of a tool that can check whether applications will work with the upcoming OS.
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In a matchup between VMware Server and Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2, our reviewer says they're both capable products and that the differences is "on the margin." Making the right choice is all about deciding what's most important to your infrastructure.
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Microsoft and Citrix have signed a new five-year collaboration and licensing agreement. The agreement formalizes Citrixâs access to Microsoft Windows Server code and allows for patent cross-licensing between Microsoft and Citrix.
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By AOIFE WHITE BRUSSELS, Belgium - 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.
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After two years of fits and starts, Microsoft will finally deliver its Virtual Server 2005 product, which company officials contend will be an important contributor to its Dynamic Systems Initiative (DSI), the company&#39;s plan for managing distributed
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Microsoft Corp. announced this week it will only charge users one license for running its Windows Server products on a dual-core processor.