Cost of Vista Business License Offset by Savings, Says Microsoft
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If large businesses use tools such as Microsoft's Solution Accelerator Business Desktop Deployment package (assuming it's easier to use than it is to say), the administrative "best practices" those tools will help them adopt could save them somewhat more per PC than what they spent for the license, according to a Gartner study advanced by a Microsoft product manager who spoke with BetaNews.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft is working with state officials in Louisiana to offer Windows and Office software free for a year to small businesses still feeling the effects of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Microsoft on Monday unveiled a new program, called the Software License Relief Program, in conjunction with the 2007 Hope & Recovery Summit, which is commemorating the second anniversary of both storms. Microsoft is working with the Louisiana Small Business Development Center (LSBDC) to offer the program, which will launch next month and gives eligible small businesses access to software from Microsoft, including Windows and Office, free of charge for a year. The program doesn't come without a catch, however -- there are eligibility requirements for businesses, one of which is to purchase a three-year Microsoft Open Value License that spreads out software license payments over three years. Open Value bundles core software offerings from Microsoft into one license. After purchasing the software, businesses can bring the first year's invoice to any LSBDC, and Microsoft will pay the bill. The businesses themselves are responsible for the last two years of the license. Microsoft estimates that for a typical small business of 50 employees, with 25 PCs licensing Windows Vista and the 2007 Office system suite of programs, that year of licensing at no charge could save the organization as much as $12,050. The company traditionally does not disclose the specific cost for Open Value licenses because they vary by company. To receive the program's benefits, small businesses also must have been in business prior to the dates Hurricanes Katrina and Rita made landfall -- Aug. 29, 2005 or Sept. 24, 2005, respectively. Other requirements include having less than 200 employees; being based in one of the 19 federal disaster-designated Louisiana parishes; and having applied for small-business assistance through at least one federal or state government program, whether the application was approved or not. Microsoft has donated millions of dollars to the recovery effort in the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which devastated the region two years ago. In the first year after the storms hit, the company donated more than $11 million in cash and technology to organizations such as the American Red Cross; Governor's Funds in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Alabama; and America's Second Harvest. The company also offered grants to establish or rebuild community technology centers destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
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SEATTLE, Oct. 4 -- In an effort to curb software piracy, Microsoft Corp. said Wednesday that people running an unlicensed copy of its future Windows Vista operating will initially be denied access to some of the most anticipated features of the operating system, including Windows Aero, an improved...
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With the release of Windows Vista, Microsoft Corp. raised the prices it charges retail customers for technical support related to the new OS and Office 2007.
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(InfoWorld) - A security vendor is offering an add-on product for Windows Vista's User Account Control feature, which has been flagged as a threat to business users because it can be easily bypassed by hackers. BeyondTrust's Privilege Manager 3.0, which will be available on March 19 and costs $30 per user, protects enterprise desktops running Vista with User Account Control in two major ways, said John Moyer, CEO of BeyondTrust. First, it grants elevated privileges to certain applications and functions transparently to end users, instead of involving them in the process with dialogue boxes, he said. Hackers can use these dialogue boxes to trick users into unknowingly allowing malicious code to run on the machine. Security vendor Symantec recently released research thatÂ outlined some of Vista's security holes and listed User Account Control as one of them for the reason Moyer outlined. Microsoft has said it is evaluating Symantec's research about Vista and will take steps to fix any vulnerabilities in the OS. Microsoft included User Account Control in Vista to add security by limiting the access individual users have to applications or functions. While this is an enhancement for home users, it presents a security problem for business users because in order to access certain applications that are beyond the scope of their limited privileges, they must set up and use administrator passwords to set higher access rights, Moyer said. These dialogue boxes that ask them for passwords provide a way for hackers to get in, he said. The second feature of Privilege Manager that helps prevent intrusion through User Access Control gives IT administrators centralized administration of setting the elevation of privileges for users, even though Privilege Manager itself runs locally, Moyer said. BeyondTrust's application connects to the group policy features of Vista to allow for this type of administration, he said. BeyondTrust spun off from Desktop Standards, a company which Microsoft announced it had purchased on Oct. 2. Twenty employees of DesktopStandard took the Policy Maker Application Security product and became BeyondTrust. That product later was rebranded Privilege Manager, Moyer said.
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InfoWorld - Microsoft and one of Asia&#39;s leading discount airlines teamed up on Wednesday to promote the use of a new software program, or desktop gadget, to access Internet information on the Vista OS.
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(InfoWorld) - A new IDC report on the impact of Windows Vista on the industry claims Microsoft's business partners stand to benefit more financially from the OS than Microsoft itself will in 2007. According to the report on the U.S. economic impact of Vista, for every one U.S. dollar Microsoft makes on Vista in 2007, Microsoft partners that offer software, hardware and services related to Vista will make $18. "If there's a surprising thing to people, it's how extensively a Microsoft piece of software ripples out through the ecosystem," said John Gantz, one of the IDC analysts who wrote the report. "Microsoft, as a software vendor, casts a bigger shadow than its revenues." IDC analysts Al Gillen and Marcel Warmerdam co-wrote the report, released Monday, which was commissioned by Microsoft. The report also said that 35 percent to 45 percent of new PCs that ship to enterprises in 2007 will run Vista. "Some thought [adoption] would move faster," Gantz said. "But to me, that's relatively quick." However, he added that most of the Vista adoption in the enterprise will come from new PCs, not upgrades to enterprise computers that are running an earlier version of Windows. And 2008 will be the year Vista really takes hold in the enterprise, with about 80 percent of PCs being shipped to businesses running the OS, and nearly 40 percent of the enterprise installed base running Vista, Gantz said. According to the report, Vista will be good not only for the wallets of Microsoft partners in 2007, but also for the IT industry in general. The OS should produce more than 100,000 new jobs in 2007, according to the report. IDC said that within the U.S. in 2007, as many as 200,000 IT companies that produce, sell or distribute products or services running on Vista will employ more than 660,000 people. Another 1.15 million will be employed at companies using the OS. And more than 60 percent of the growth in Windows-related employment will be driven by Vista, according to the report.
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(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.
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A &quot;landmark agreement&quot; with Microsoft to renew the NHS&#39; license for desktop software would save an estimated $608 million.
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Despite underwhelming consumers and being&#160;snubbed by enterprises,&#160;Windows Vista&#39;s numbers keep growing, with Microsoft&#160; saying Thursday that it has now shipped 88 million copies of the operating system, almost double the number of copies of XP in the same amount of time at its launch.In late July, Microsoft said it had hit the&#160;60 million shipment mark with Vista.Microsoft had previously said that it had&#160;shipped 20 million copies of Vista&#160;in its first month and 40 million copies of Vista in the first 100 days.Microsoft credited Vista with helping it&#160;beat Wall Street expectations&#160;and raise financial projections for the rest of the year. The company reported revenue of $13.76 billion for the first quarter ended Sept. 30, up 27 percent from the same quarter in 2006.Revenue in its client segment, which includes all consumer versions of Windows, was $4.14 billion, edging out the $4.11 billion in revenue from the Microsoft Business Division where Office is produced.CFO Chris Liddell credited strong sales in emerging markets, due in part to anti-piracy and legalization programs there.Client revenues, however, did not top those of the first calendar quarter this year, when Vista was officially launched. Revenues at that time were $5.32 billion.Three-quarters of the copies sold of Vista were higher-priced &#39;premium&#39; versions, compared to 59 percent of the copies of Windows -- primarily XP -- available a year ago.The 88 million figure mostly includes Vista-installed PCs bought by consumers and small businesses, as well as packaged copies of Vista sold in stores or online.It does exclude the tens of millions of Windows corporate volume licenses. There, many enterprises continue to hold off on deploying Vista, acknowledged CFO Chris Liddell, though he expects them to start deploying it when Vista Service Pack 1&#39;s arrival in the first quarter of next year.Nevertheless, revenue from companies renewing their volume licenses for Windows, which gives them the right to upgrade to Vista, was up 27 percent.Other highlights from the statistics:-- Unit sales of Windows Server&#39;s premium enterprise edition were up 35 percent year-over-year;-- A release candidate for Windows Server 2008 has been downloaded more than one million times in its first month;-- Unit and revenue growth of SQL Server were both up more than 15 percent;-- Halo 3 generated $330 million in revenue;-- Xbox 360 console unit sales increased 90 percent, driven by a price cut in August and Halo 3-related demand;-- Client revenues, including those for Vista, are expected to grow 62-64 percent year-over-year in the current fiscal Q2, or 13-14 percent excluding certain revenue deferrals in the prior year;-- Microsoft Business Division revenues, including those for Office, are expected to grow 15-16 percent in Q2 after normalizing for impact of technology guarantees and pre-shipment deferrals in the prior year;-- A beta version of Office Communications Server has been downloaded 80,000 times;-- There are 10,000 customers in the Customer Technical Preview (CTP) program for PerformancePoint Server, its new business intelligence offering.Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.
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Nov. 10, 2004. Microsoft is extending the policy that currently protects some of its business customers from potential legal costs associated with intellectual-property disputes to all of its customers, including consumers.
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The software maker's Canadian Web site briefly posts prices for Windows Vista's many editions.
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Microsoft Corp. will charge $239 for the version of the Windows Vista operating system it hopes most consumers will buy, according to prices listed on Internet retailer Amazon.com's Web site.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft on Tuesday released the pricing for Windows Vista, about a week after online retailer Amazon.com disclosed the OS's pricing on its Web site. The company also expanded the tester base of Vista to about 5 million users as it begins gearing up for Windows Vista's widespread release, which is scheduled for early next year. Microsoft's suggested retail pricing for Windows Vista is as follows: $399 for Windows Vista Ultimate, $299 for Windows Vista Business, $239 for Windows Vista Home Premium, and $199 for Windows Vista Home Basic. Upgrades to Windows Vista from XP are $259 for Windows Vista Ultimate, $199 for Windows Vista Home Premium and $99 for Windows Vista Home Basic. The prices are the same as the onesÂ listed on Amazon.com's Web site last week, except the online retailer listed an upgrade for Vista Home Basic as $0.95 more. Amazon.com is already taking pre-orders for Vista, and lists on its Web site that the OS will be available on Jan. 30, 2007. Microsoft has not given a firm date for Vista's release, but is targeting sometime in January for the OS's general release. On Friday Microsoft made available Release Candidate 1 (RC1) of Windows Vista, which means the OS is in its final testing phases. The release was initially made available only to about 15,000 users who are in Microsoft's TechBeta and Technology Adoption Program (TAP) program, but on Tuesday the company expanded that release to members of the Windows Vista Customer Preview Program. The company also will post Windows Vista RC1 to its Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) and TechNet Web sites so subscribers of those programs can download it. The company said that about 5 million users worldwide will have access to RC1 as Windows Vista goes through its final testing. Windows Vista's release has been delayed several times, and industry and financial analysts have said they think the release will slip even further into 2007. However, analysts Tuesday said the release of RC1 and Vista's pricing are positive signs the company could be on track to release the OS on time.
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The award for fees and costs comes in a case in which Microsoft agreed to allocate $1.1 billion for California consumers. By Associated Press.
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Rivals of Microsoft are charging that the new Vista operating system is the companyâs effort to extend its monopoly to the Internet.
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In the first year of Windows Vista's release, Microsoft Corp. is expecting businesses to adopt it much faster than any other version of Windows.