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Munich buys Windows 2000 used licenses
Money for old code
The German city of Munich is buying a whole pile of Microsoft Windows this month - but it won't be the newly released Windows Vista. Instead, it will buy 2000 legit "used licenses" of Windows 2000 Professional, claiming it will save them money.
The licenses are bought from Munich based company Usedsoft, which buys up licenses from other companies that no longer use them.
Second hand licenses are growing in popularity. In the UK, sales of second-hand Microsoft software licences are, apparently, doubling month-on-month.
That's not surprising: for instance, 218 licenses of Windows Office XP will cost €70,000 (£47,000) in Germany, but when used, the price drops to €32,000. 400 licenses of mySAP Business Suite will set you back at €1.5 million, but 400 second hand licenses will sell for €750.000.
Not so long ago Hamburg based pharmaceutical company Klosterfrau bought 600 licenses of long forgotten Office 97, and then resold them to another company Susensoftware.
The only problem of course: expired product support. Microsoft phased out mainstream support for its Windows 2000 client and server releases on June 30 2005.®
Biting the hand that feeds IT
