Six months on from the enterprise launch ofWindows Vista,
Microsoft last week released new licensing options for
virtualised and thin client environments running the Vista
operating system.
So far, however, the two new licences are only available to
Software Assurance customers using Windows Vista Enterprise, and
indications from Computer Weekly readers suggest that many large
users have no immediate plans to adopt Vista.
The first licence is free to Software Assurance users, giving
them the right to use Windows Vista on "discless" PCs. These are
essentially systems without hard drives that store their data
centrally over the network.
Microsoft is partnering with PC makers to build what it
describes as a "new form factor".
Microsoft's second offering is a new subscription licence called
Windows Vista Enterprise Centralised Desktops (VECD). This allows
users to run Vista on virtual machines on a centralised server, and
access it from thin or thick clients.
Microsoft calls VECD a "superset" of the thin-client product
Windows Terminal Services. However, it differs from Terminal
Services in requiring more server resources to run, and is
therefore more costly.
Scott Woodgate, director of Microsoft's Windows Business Group,
said, "Most customers who ask for these options have sizeable IT
departments and highly regulated, highly managed IT
environments.
"They are looking to centralise their Windows experience for
certain segments of their user base that are always connected, in
the hope of benefiting from centralised management."
Ray Titcombe, chairman of the IBM Computer Users Association,
said the users that would benefit most from the new options were
large corporate enterprises with specific investments in
server-side computing environments.
But he added, "This is also a clear case of Microsoft trying to
beef up the Vista offering after a slow sales pattern from the time
of announcement.
"Software Assurance is still something that Microsoft struggles
to make the marketplace appreciate, or even invest in."
Frank Cordrey, vice-chairman of blue chip user group The
Corporate IT Forum, said, "For larger organisations, the different
licensing models are unlikely to be the be-all and end-all of early
deployment.
"A lot will depend on how these models fit together with the
general use of Windows software and the planned timing of
upgrades."
Cordrey said he did not expect large corporate enterprises to
buy into Vista unless they saw the benefit and the time was
right.
"The difficulty, as always, will be the link between upgrade
paths, timing and pricing. I suspect there will also be some
confusion over what is and what can be included."
Microsoft declined to comment on how it expected the new
licensing options to affect Vista sales. However, analysts said the
new licences followed a trend from Microsoft towards increased
virtualisation.
In October 2005, Microsoft simplified its virtual Windows
licensing by allowing users to have four virtual machines running
on top of Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition, and in October
2006, Microsoft went further to add unlimited virtualisation rights
to Windows Swerver 2003 R2 Datacenter Edition at no extra cost.
Later this year, Microsoft also plans to release System Centre
Virtual Machine Manager, a tool to help increase physical server
utilisation and centralise the management and provisioning of
virtual machines.
In mid-2008 Microsoft will unveil Viridian, its "hypervisor"
virtualisation technology that will run on the forthcoming Windows
Longhorn Server.
However, analyst firm Gartner noted that Microsoft has also made
less user-friendly licensing changes, with Exchange 2007 users now
having to pay for their Outlook clients.
Matthew Cain, research vice-president at Gartner, said, "By
decoupling Outlook and Exchange licensing, Microsoft is attempting
to drive faster upgrades to the Office 2007 suite."
How do vista sales break down?
Microsoft says it has sold 20 million copies of Vista this year,
but has not broken down the figure, prompting speculation among IT
commentators.
Jonathan Schlaffer, editor of dedicated Vista blogging
sitevista.blorge.com, said, "What Microsoft has not said is how
many of those copies were sold to retailers to put on store
shelves, which may or may not have been sold to consumers by
now."
He added that the figure of 20 million includes Windows XP
desktops sold last year, which entitled users to an express upgrade
to Vista.
"Not all those copies have been claimed. Some have been
distributed, but the question remains how many people are actually
installing them. To take it even further, Microsoft may even be
counting computers sitting in stores with Vista installed that have
not yet been sold," said Schlaffer.
Microsoft said, "We are not sharing the specific breakdown of
sales at this time, but traditionally the bulk of Windows sales
occur preinstalled on new PCs."
Microsoft has not revealed how many of the sales are to
consumers and how many to enterprises.
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