When it comes to the consumerization of IT, Microsoft just doesn’t get it. The company’s software licensing policies have lagged advances in hardware and software for years; and now, an apparent effort to use licensing to give its Surface tablet an edge may backfire on Redmond.
Microsoft and other traditional software vendors have struggled with how to change their licensing rules ever since the advent of virtualization, which divorced software from hardware. Instead of assigning one license per machine, virtualization requires licensing of virtual machines, which are continually being created, moved around, and eliminated.
The rapid adoption of mobile platforms and cloud computing have strained old licensing schemes even more. In fact, a prediction that Dave Buchholz, principal engineer at Intel Corp.'s Intel IT unit, made to me in early 2011 has proved prescient: "As corporate employees start using many different devices -- smartphones, laptops, iPads -- corporations are asking, 'How many licenses am I going to have to buy?' "
Two years ago, Microsoft adjusted its licensing policies in an effort to adapt to virtualization, relaxing licensing requirements for virtual clients. It also extended remote access rights to allow enterprise users that were covered under Windows SA to use “non-corporate devices” -- at that time, mostly PCs and laptops -- to access virtual Windows desktops and Microsoft Office applications hosted on a VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) platform.
But the rules were convoluted, confusing, and essentially useless, according to Paul DeGroot, a consultant whose firm, Software Licensing Advisors Inc., specializes in, well, advising clients on software licensing. In parsing the language, DeGroot figures that the these remote access rights only permit “access from untrusted devices over insecure networks, the kind of thing that most corporations will do their level best to block.”
Then last spring, Microsoft tweaked the rules again in preparation for launching Windows 8. Again, the changes are very confusing. (Apparently software licenses are so complex that consultants like DeGroot can make a living deciphering them.)
For example, in the case of Windows RT, the tablet version of Windows 8, here’s what the latest changes boil down to: Corporate users that are covered under Microsoft’s Windows Software Assurance program will be able to use Windows RT tablets with no additional licensing costs. But they will not have access rights from iPads or Android tablets. Those users will be required to buy something called a Companion Device License. (DeGroot gives a good explanation of the rule changes here.)
The Wall Street Journal recently picked up on this change, reporting that Microsoft is using its licensing as a way to give Windows RT-based tablets and its own new Surface tablet an advantage in the enterprise market.
DeGroot told the Journal he’s not aware of any case in which Microsoft has actually enforced these licensing charges, at least not yet. But it’s certainly a worry for CIOs now and in the future. “A coming nightmare scenario for many organizations will be the day that Microsoft asks them how many of their employees access email or work documents from their smartphones or iPads,” said DeGroot.
This type of subtle pressure -- the potential for Microsoft to find (and fine) enterprises out of compliance for trying to accommodate the BYOD trend -- is so twentieth-century. It shows that Microsoft is still stuck in the old client-server world.
One CIO in the Journal blog warns that the action and Microsoft’s general attitude may force him to “engineer [Microsoft] out” of the enterprise. Microsoft does not seem to recognize that the iPad and other tablets have already made significant inroads into the corporate market.
Such backward policies are likely to backfire on the company and further alienate CIOs and corporate users.
[Ed note update: At press time, Microsoft had not responded to a request for comment on the views expressed in this blog. Three days later, a Microsoft spokesperson replied that the company is unable to accommodate the request for comment at this time.]
I agree everytime I turn arround thier privacy policy changes again. it is bad business and worth considering stopping the use of FB. I would never allow my employer access or use fb as a professional tool. Linkedin & twitter are here for a reason
Facebook's infrastructure is second to none (and having worked with a competitor, i can say that with confidence). They do some very interesting things in the background while people are posting silly pictures on each other's pages, and that would make a stunningly effective platform for all manner of software magic. The question has to be whether they can leverage their expertise into something useful to business (my current client blocks all social media due to security concerns). If they find a way, it could be the ultimate 'killer app.' Of course, if the bad guys ever manage to get in the door, the results could be disastrous for all concerned.
Maybe it's just me, because I'm a freelancer and don't work for any one monolithic employer, but there's no way that I'm giving an employer access to or control over my Facebook information. I've never trusted FB, and they are constantly changing things in ways that seem to subvert my attempts to keep things private.
As an individual, as a professional and worker, in some sense Facebook gives me greater control over the way I represent myself to the world, to my organizations.
For a person, what greater freedom is there to be able to say to a bank -- no, I am not a record in your homogeneous relational database...I am a complex admixture of text, relationsions, apps that I use even. My data is XML and English not SQL.
That is the real breakthrough. Facebook more closely resembles the relationships we have between living human beings. It's less of an abstraction of the sort that occurs when you siphon a few measley attributes off into a SQL record!
jabailo - Companies need to be concerned with Facebook not just having, but also controlling that much information on their employees, customers, and partners.
Ok, so here we have Windows 8 -- and it's turned itself from just an app launcher into a sort of .NET assembly where all the low level functions are now accessible at the Windows developer level.
Then you get this increasing integration -- at the desktop level -- with a Facebook service providing identity for 1 billion people...and those 1 billion are the ones who buy stuff.
So, you see that with Windows 8 you can begin to get back beyond browsers to rich desktop applications, web enabled, membership connected, real time, ...
You could almost run a whole week of IE articles just on Facebook and it's potential impact on the way we do business information systems.
I certainly don't have a robust answer for all of it -- but I do think this...Facebook is the elephant in the room for many of the issues we are discussing...and it won't change any time soon!
Mitch - good question. My guess is that most people will already have their own mobile phones for their personal use, and soon will, and that most would prefer to conduct their business on the same phone. So I'd say that, yes, corporations could require their employees to provide their own phones. Tablets may be another matter, at least until they completely take over the PC world. I think we're all going to have our own personal technology - it will be necessary for our daily lives and we will also use it for work.
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Two years ago, Raj Rajaratnam, the billionaire manager of the Galleon Group hedge fund, was convicted on 14 counts of insider trading. It was the largest hedge-fund insider trading case in history. But that was just the highest profile part of a broad push by the Department of Justice and the Securities & Exchange Commission to crack down on insider trading. It's an investigation that has an interesting backstory that has not received much attention: much of that insider trading happened in the tech industry. And it's a story that is far from over.
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Companies need to take advantage of new technologies to simplify interfaces, improve capabilities, and enhance back-office processes. But they can't upgrade their Websites too often.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
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While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
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