So Microsoft today became one of the first vendors I’m aware of to openly and unambiguously state that its per processor licensing will stay that way, regardless of the number of cores the chip will run. Here’s what I told internetnews.com on the topic (link):
“From a software industry perspective this is an intelligent and aggressive move by Microsoft to try and seize the low ground in TCO conversations,” Stephen O’Grady, senior analyst at research firm RedMonk, told internetnews.com. “Many enterprise application vendors are struggling with the implications of multi-core architectures and its pricing implications. Microsoft’s unambiguous position here stands to benefit them at buy time and will pressure competing vendors to follow suit. Between this decision and Sun’s per-employee licensing options, customers stand to benefit from more predictable and manageable pricing.”
Now I haven’t talked to the folks from Redmond about this yet, but to me this is a great move for Microsoft. Pricing for enterprise applications over time developed into a quasi-actuarial science – and I should know, because in my former life as a systems integrator I had to try and build the potential pricing models on the front end of several engagements, and my math skills are marginal at best.
The advent of multi-core architectures is poised to make the often absurdly complex pricing schemes even worse for some enterprises, and is the cause of some hand-wringing from CIOs and IT managers that I’ve spoken with recently. But Microsoft just closed the door on what some would perceive as an additional revenue opportunity in favor of simplicity and (likely) a happier customer. For the firm that gave us Licensing 6.0, that’s a step in the right direction. More importantly, this is likely to pressure some of its competitors to follow suit, or face substantial pushback from CIOs on the topic.
So when it comes to today’s news, I’m in wholehearted agreement with Tim Bray that licensing today is far more complicated than it needs to be, and I’d go further and say that per processor licensing schemes are likely to be increasingly pressured by more intrinsic pricing models (i.e. Sun’s per employee model), open source competition, and the growing abilities of the processors themselves. About time, too.
