ITinfo: IT Buyers Angry At Microsoft's New Pricing

You want to charge what?!!

Microsoft's new pricing upsets software buyers

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IT Buyers Angry At Microsoft's New Pricing

by Dave Murphy
ISSN 1535-3613

Giga, a market research firm, and Sunbelt Software, a Windows integrator, have released a new survey that found many corporate software buyers will consider switching to another software product in light of Microsoft's announced change in software pricing. How many actually switch remains to be seen; however, the just-released survey found significant anger and resentment toward Microsoft's schedule.

The survey polled 4,550 technology professionals. The anticipated effect of the pricing change breaks down as:

80 percent will pay more
42 percent will pay 20 to 50 percent more
19 percent will pay 200 to 300 percent more
7 percent will see no pricing change
2.6 percent will decrease their software costs

The survey reports that 36 percent of IT professionals will consider switching to a competitor's product because of the increased costs.

Separately, the Gartner research firm anticipates average costs for Microsoft software to increase between 33 and 100 percent for most users.

The anticipated increases stem from newly-required upgrade programs, a precursor to Microsoft's plan to require users to commit to software subscriptions rather than indefinite usage licenses.

Dave's Opinion

I haven't calculated how Microsoft's pricing change will affect our association; however, I have a hunch that we'll have to increase our software budget to some degree. Probably, we'll keep our current complement of Windows 98 SE, Windows Me, and Windows 2000 workstations for as long as possible, thereby delaying any expensive subscription license commitments.

I've just downloaded the beta version of Sun's StarOffice 6. I'll initially test it on a Linux workstation. If it works as well as others report it to, I'll also install it under Windows 2000. Watch for a report in this e-zine.

I most use Microsoft's Office XP suite of applications because it's the newest version of the most common office productivity suite and I try to match the applications that most other IT trainers use. However, if the increased costs of new software licenses force us to reduce services in order to pay for new software, I'll switch our internal operations to a capable alternative, such as StarOffice, in a heartbeat.

Call for Comments

What do you think? Leave your comments on the message center.

References

Microsoft
Sun (StarOffice)
Message Center

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updated October 5, 2001
http://dgl.com/itinfo/2001/it011005.html