Microsoft has announced price increases effective November 1, 2013, for products including Windows Server Datacenter, RDS CALs and a new contract format, the "Server & Cloud Enrollment” (SCE). Click HERE to read the announcement. And so continues Microsoft’s historic pattern of increasing prices ahead of new version releases, and the usual autumn price bumps they post. This year it’s mostly about Windows Server and “RDS” which is the Citrix/Terminal Server/virtual desktop piece, along with related products. Also, on the cloud front, new Azure capabilities (maturity) with bundling/pricing tie-ins to EA’s, via this new SCE agreement ...
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The old adage that the customer is always right is no longer passé as the IT market shifts from traditional, perpetual license agreements to cloud subscriptions. Old habits die hard, however, and most customers need to be shaken from the Stockholm syndrome that decades of painful negotiations and paying exorbitant maintenance fees have left them with. The most symptomatic effects are far more subtle than positive feelings toward their supplier-captors; rather, it’s the belief that suppliers’ values reign supreme. Consider, for example, how Oracle treats its customers within a negotiation for incremental licensing. To summarize, contract ...
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As perhaps the most famous and successful pair of tag-team tech executives in history, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer built the Microsoft empire by first co-opting the operating system of the new PC devices, then learning from the lessons of their new business partner IBM about how to build and enforce monopolistic "lock-in" over their customers and partners. As their market position and strength increased, they engineered long term growth and dominance by using aggressive pricing and licensing tactics, combined with a constant churning of the core product bundles (but always relying on Windows first, then Office, then servers). Microsoft's ...
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You've all heard that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is ‘retiring’ within the next 12 months. Many are now speculating on who will be the new CEO. Here is my short-list in order of probability: Bill Gates. Gates is still young, he's still the biggest shareholder of Microsoft, and much like when former Vice-President Dick Cheney led the VP search for former President George W. Bush, he may just find that there's no one better than him for the job. Tony Bates. Bates is the former CEO of Skype, an $8.5 billion acquisition for Microsoft, and has the consumer driven product experience to transform Microsoft into a commercialized mobile powerhouse ...
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Your strategic supplier's performance no longer meets your company's requirements. Your contractual agreements don't offer the levers you need to govern organizational value. The value of your supplier investments no longer align to the costs you are being charged. You've tried to escalate the situation and resolve these issues to no end; your supplier relationship is broken. Hey -- it happens. Worse yet, the new class of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), and cloud computing suppliers have shifted the line of supplier accountability deeper into your supply chain, putting more at stake, and making it more difficult to effectively manage supplier ...
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As apocalyptic as that headline may sound, pigs aren't readying their flight gear just yet. Rather, Oracle and Microsoft simply agree that the cloud can save you money on hardware and data-center operations. Unfortunately, they also agree that those savings should go directly into their pockets at the same offensively high rate margins as always. In fact, depending on your definition of cloud, neither Oracle nor Microsoft is in the cloud business whatsoever and all the announcements in the world mean nothing. Even Oracle’s own cloud offering is the 15 year-old On Demand service (out of Austin, TX) re-marketed in fashionable terminology. It’s ...
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The proliferation of Cloud Computing and SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) providers, and the promise these technologies offer: (i) low-cost solutions, (ii) quick and easy deployments, (iii) high levels of user adoption, (iv) device and access and platform homogeneity, (v) elastic scalable capacity, (vi) subscription based pricing, and (vii) plug-and-play interoperability, has certainly led clients to unprecedented levels of adoption of these technologies. And while the “Promise of Cloud Largely Remains Unfulfilled,” this hasn't seemed to materially slow this pace of adoption. As a result, we think it’s important that our clients get this right. ...
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In our November 2012 issue of The Net Effect, we published a White Paper titled “Top 10 Reasons Why Clients Spend WAY TOO MUCH...For Telecommunications”. This is the fourth in a series of blog entries that will explore each of these topics in more detail, moving on to #7 Inefficient Wireless Rate Plan Management. Each employee mobile wireless subscriber on a corporate agreement is associated with one or more rate plans that specify the number of voice, data and texting limits. In addition some plans single out email, video and image transmissions, as well as a myriad of other plans for international travel and out-calling from domestic to ...
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If you find yourself paying support on Oracle software that is no longer deployed, then this blog is for you. (The remaining three people may want to continue reading regardless since shelfware is a common affliction that may or may not want to be avoided.) It’s not only common, but also causes resentment among IT executives keen on cutting costs. It’s worth mentioning Oracle’s reasoning. When you license software, Oracle extends a discount commensurate with volume. Years later, when you seek to eliminate shelfware from the associated renewal, Oracle forfeits the original discount via re-pricing. The pertinent policy language is publicly ...
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In a previous blog post, I took great pains at articulating my 10 Reasons Why Ginni Rometty would fail as IBM's new CEO. In the post, I mentioned the poisonous sales culture (you live by the sword, you die by the sword), which is at the center (of blame) for this and last quarter's missed performance targets. Another concern was the 'garage sale' of business units that would inevitably have to come if IBM were to meet its targets. As we have recently learned, IBM appears to be in the process of selling its server business to Lenovo, and it has long been rumored to be preparing its services business for sale as well. It seems Ginni may be ...
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