...which isn't really news, now is it?

As they can no longer buy out the competition or release their own sub-versions of other products due to certain laws regarding monopolies, they have taken another route to keep thier numbers up.

If I have a choice between a setup that will cost millions to run my organization or one that will cost 10% but uses open source software, which do you think I would take.

The joke is that Microsoft's own records about Select licensing are in disarray - have any of you large businesses out there ever taken the trouble to look at the records MS keeps about your licences? You ought to!

Some years ago, MS stopped sending out real-life paper licences ("licence confirmations") whenever a Select customer coughed up for yet another Microsoft "fix" to sooth their addiction cravings, which is understandable, but the underlying assumption is that MS keep accurate records.

In fact, the LARs (Large Account Resellers) get such a tiny proportion of the licence fee (about £2 for each copy of Office!) that there's just no incentive for them to make sure that they are recording the sale accurately on Microsoft's records systems, but legally (according to Microsoft): "License confirmations from Microsoft are the only legal evidence that a license is owned, and not a certificate sent by the LAR as a proof of purchase." So if the LAR gets it wrong, the customer is legally stuffed - they have paid, but are still unlicensed, and are liable to pay AGAIN for another licence when an audit carried out within the Select terms and conditions reveals that fact!

Having seen the internal results of such an audit, which seemed to show massive underlicensing in a group of properly-licensed MS customers (the licences existed, but were applied to the wrong Select agreements!), I feel sorry for those still hooked in this way. Bite the Open Source bullet whilst you still can, the pain represents the cold turkey you will suffer whilst getting "clean" but you will feel 100% better when you are cured! :-)

"Some years ago, MS stopped sending out real-life paper licences ("licence confirmations") "

Are you sure it was so recent? I'm still waiting for confirmation of my Windows licence registration from 1988.

3 year contracts? Surely that will put people off rather than attract.... Only a moron would consider a 3 year lock-in a good thing in the IT world.

It's basically the equivalent of buying a car that comes with a contract not to change car vendor for the next 15 to 30 years.

No, really. All I'm hearing lately is M$ wringing every last cent out of everything they can - ramming software people aren't interested in down their throats - marketing more and more of what is, even by M$ standards, thoroughly excessive bloatware - finding new and inventive ways of increasing customers ongoing costs...

The recent 'toughening up' of WGA, to the point where customers are having their perfectly genuine XP (and Vista) installs de-activated for no discernable reason...

It doesn't look good, does it?

Ah well. M$ won't be the first software market leader to crash and burn, probably not the last either. But if the last person out of the door pushes the big red button on software activation, I can see them being the most (in)famous!