Trade-up your Microsoft licensing for FOSS to reduce costs

David M Williams
Wednesday, 23 December 2009 04:44

Opinion and Analysis

While the worst of the recession may now be behind us business executives will still be looking for cost-reduction initiatives across the company. It’s time for IT departments to consider their Microsoft licensing spend and ask if open source makes better sense.

You do not have to look hard to find people struggling to grasp Microsoft’s various licensing options. In fact, even Microsoft’s own staff must take internal training on the subject, so torturously puzzling it can be.

Not only is it confusing, it is also expensive. While company managers were trying to deal with a recession during the year they also felt the squeeze from major software vendors who instituted licensing changes that created unwarranted financial burdens of their own.

Microsoft isn’t alone – Oracle, IBM and other vendors all introduced licensing changes over the past year which customers justly criticised. The plans effectively conspired to increase costs and force upgrades, and required the purchase of support and services which companies did not want or need.

This comes on the back of customer disgruntlement over paying expensive software assurance fees earlier this decade. Microsoft’s software assurance promised reduced-cost upgrades over the course of the agreement via an up-front fee.

This meant customers were betting that new Microsoft software releases would be issued and they’d ultimately save in the long run over paying full price for two subsequent versions.

The problem was Microsoft then did not produce any new versions of either Microsoft Office or Microsoft Windows during the period 2003 to 2007. A lot of money spent on software assurance came with no payoff whatsoever.

A further problem is that software licensing is self-policing but yet penalties for not buying the correct licenses are severe and board members might be liable. As a result, companies often overbuy on licenses to keep safe.

As we enter 2010 technology leaders ought to be looking at how much they spend on proprietary software, including the never-ending cycle of maintenance, support and license renewal fees.

It’s time to begin looking harder at implementing solutions that aren’t locked in to a single provider. Does that new server really have to run Windows Server, for instance, when Linux would provide the same outcome but without any software fee whatsoever?

Should Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) be the default Intranet choice when Alfresco would perform the job admirably and without any software price tag?

Gone are the days when “nobody got fired for choosing IBM” (or Microsoft). It’s time to consider the cost.

IT professionals talk about choosing the best tool for the job but it can often be merely rhetoric; it’s time to put this in practice and genuinely consider whether we really need an expensive platform to achieve a specific functional outcome, or if perfectly suitable free alternatives will perform an equal or superior job – and without risk of lock-in or punitive fees.