Microsoft hammers first nails into Enterprise Agreements' coffins

[tangor]

Microsoft is to prevent SMEs from buying software via an Enterprise Agreement, a move some industry figures interpreted as the first of a death-by-a-thousand-cuts fate for the volume licensing programme.

From the start of July, Microsoft will raise the minimum commitment on EAs from 250 users/ devices to 500, channel partners confirmed.

[channelregister.co.uk...]

Later in article some of what I've been predicting:

Another top tier Microsoft channelite said the “direction of travel” is that all Microsoft software will be consumed on a subscription through Azure and Office.

[bill]

It will be hard to wean the enterprise IT departments off of their current licencing strategies, but they do seem to be pushing the smaller companies toward this, almost dumb terminal, use of their software with moves like this. There is a certain appeal of this sort of setup in smaller operations who might not have the people in place to service things.

However, this is about licencing agreements, which is incredibly convoluted on the enterprise level. I've been working on this and even Microsoft employees have a hard time keeping this stuff straight. Anything they could do to simplify matters would undoubtedly be appreciated.

[tangor]

My odd fear is that loss of the license will result in dumb terminals held by a few corporations (adobe led the way) and creative control and/or control of data will be compromised.

Oddly enough, I read about this before there ever was a PC (so to speak) from literature written in the 40's and 50's, which I read (as a snot nosed kid) in the 50's and 60's. This is more of the "railroad" or "ma bell" or "oil" monopoly style method of doing business. If MS piles on and this passes consumers, then katy bar the door! (Meanwhile, G is attempting same with AMP, while already having a near monopoly on search)

We live in interesting times. :(

[bill]

Products like Office 365 and Azure that are heavily cloud based can eliminate the need for a lot of manpower in big companies. Microsoft takes care of updates, systems, and security (ugh). That makes these licencing deals understandable in the sense that Microsoft is taking on more from their side.

Although I can already see corporate IT resisting the Microsoft drive toward the cloud, there are a lot of situations where it does make sense. Smaller operations can function without any IT person at all in a lot of cases.

[tangor]

Agreed. In fact I have done something like that for a few small (and I mean small) clients by shouldering their load (and IT) for a price reasonable. Scale that out to millions and that works just as well.