economics of software
Wednesday, 6 April 2005 05:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daSoftware economics don't make much sense to me right now. I thought I understood them somewhat; but this is throwing me for a loop...
Monday was our local Linux User's Group (LUG) meeting. The guest presenter was from an unlikely company. He gave a demo on Windows Services for Unix, stuff I won't bother going into here 'cause it's not terribly exciting. This post isn't about his talk, which was well presented, but rather on the freebies he gave out at the end.
He gave out a boxed copy of Windows Server 2003 to everybody who came. That is to say, one of these. I've emailed with him to confirm that it is actually a full license for windows, not crippled, for us to do with what we want.
This is mind boggling to me. People are paying $600-$1000(US) for the same thing, but it's apparently worth it to Microsoft Canada to give 30-40 of them away as a goodwill gesture to linux users. OK, so $25-40K is nothing to Microsoft, but it's weird to be at the receiving end.
You might be saying, No, it's not $25K to Microsoft, it's the cost of the media. But I was thinking about it, and the box comes with no strings attached. eBay is littered with the exact same item, auctions which were completed and not pulled by Microsoft for being illegal. This is directly convertable to cash. Or, re-giftable to a company which would've paid $1000 for it. What's Microsoft's business case here?
More difficult to me is: What does it mean for people who have paid $1000 this software, that it will be given away to other people who just happen to be using an alternative to Windows?
...just something I'm pondering this afternoon.
I did a little googling, and if Microsoft has done this with other LUGs, I can't find evidence online. Maybe this presenter was merely generous and it doesn't imply anything about Microsoft's policies as a whole. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, anyway. meh.
In case you're wondering why this if f-locked, it's filtered to everybody but my Dearly Beloved, whom I promised I wouldn't tell how the LUG meeting went, because he assured me he really didn't want to know. :)
[Edit: removed f'lock, because it's unnecessary now.]
Monday was our local Linux User's Group (LUG) meeting. The guest presenter was from an unlikely company. He gave a demo on Windows Services for Unix, stuff I won't bother going into here 'cause it's not terribly exciting. This post isn't about his talk, which was well presented, but rather on the freebies he gave out at the end.
He gave out a boxed copy of Windows Server 2003 to everybody who came. That is to say, one of these. I've emailed with him to confirm that it is actually a full license for windows, not crippled, for us to do with what we want.
This is mind boggling to me. People are paying $600-$1000(US) for the same thing, but it's apparently worth it to Microsoft Canada to give 30-40 of them away as a goodwill gesture to linux users. OK, so $25-40K is nothing to Microsoft, but it's weird to be at the receiving end.
You might be saying, No, it's not $25K to Microsoft, it's the cost of the media. But I was thinking about it, and the box comes with no strings attached. eBay is littered with the exact same item, auctions which were completed and not pulled by Microsoft for being illegal. This is directly convertable to cash. Or, re-giftable to a company which would've paid $1000 for it. What's Microsoft's business case here?
More difficult to me is: What does it mean for people who have paid $1000 this software, that it will be given away to other people who just happen to be using an alternative to Windows?
...just something I'm pondering this afternoon.
I did a little googling, and if Microsoft has done this with other LUGs, I can't find evidence online. Maybe this presenter was merely generous and it doesn't imply anything about Microsoft's policies as a whole. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, anyway. meh.
In case you're wondering why this if f-locked, it's filtered to everybody but my Dearly Beloved, whom I promised I wouldn't tell how the LUG meeting went, because he assured me he really didn't want to know. :)
[Edit: removed f'lock, because it's unnecessary now.]
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no subject
Date: Wednesday, 6 April 2005 11:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, 7 April 2005 01:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, 7 April 2005 03:12 am (UTC)...Another funny thing to me is that 10 "client access licenses" are probably total overkill for most of the audience at the LUG, where most are "server hobbyists" or work for themselves at home (only one user)
no subject
Date: Thursday, 7 April 2005 03:50 am (UTC)But of course we all know that windows products aren't worth that much....