SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Microsoft middlemen rebel against removal of free software licences
More than 2,500 resellers and integrators have signed a petition opposing Microsoft's intention to remove free software licences granted to members of the channel to run their business.
The changes are described here:
Effective July 1, 2020, we will retire the internal use rights (IUR) association with the product licenses partners receive in the Microsoft Action Pack and included with a competency. Product license use rights will be updated to be used for business development scenarios such as demonstration purposes, solution/services development purposes, and internal training.
Beginning October 1, 2019, the product licenses included with competencies will be specific to the competency you attain. Please review the benefits you will receive with your competency in Partner Center at time of purchase. Additional licenses can be purchased through commercial licensing to run your business.
[...] The barriers to entry are low and companies who sign up can qualify for a range of competencies, starting with an "Action Pack" subscription that comes with a wide range of benefits, such as five Office 365 seats, five Dynamics 365 licences, 2-core SQL Server, ten Windows 10 Enterprise packages, $100 per month Azure credit and so on. The Action Pack costs around £350 per year but represents excellent value if you would otherwise have to purchase the licences. The same is true of the higher levels, Silver and Gold competencies, which command a higher fee but provide a wider range of benefits.
Resellers are not allowed to resell these specific licences, but critically, they do allow use for "internal business purposes". Smaller Microsoft channel firms have been able to operate their businesses, in large part, using these subsidised licences.
That offer is now ending. "We will retire product licenses for internal use purposes on July 1 2020," stated the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) guide.
(Score: 4, Informative) by choose another one on Wednesday July 10 2019, @08:29AM
> So, what does all this really mean?
It is just a continuation of a trend they started probably a decade ago, maybe more, of squeezing out the free or low-cost licensing options.
Their dev subscription service MSDN stopped offering "permanent" licences a long time ago, I still have piles of old DVDs with keys printed on them, which will probably still work - but these days you have to generate keys online with a current subscription, and your license to use expires when you stop paying. Most stuff you got with MSDN was supposed to be used for dev/test/demo not for running your business, but people did, and the keys got accidentally leaked. A lot.
Then there was Technet, which was intended for install / support folks rather than devs, was a very cheap (cheaper than MSDN) way of getting licences for practically everything - you were only supposed to use those licenses for testing and demonstration, not for running your business, but people did, and the keys got accidentally leaked. A lot. Technet was effectively pulled in 2013 I think, now you can only get limited time (90 day or so) demo versions, bit of a pain to run your business on those, but then pain is the idea, either of the repeated reinstall kind or of the wallet emptying kind.
Partner licences was the next scheme to crack down on, but they've been restricting that for a while too, this is just the latest turn of the screw. In the "old days" partner DVDs had "magic" keys that were practically unlimited, then they started restricting which products you got access to and how many concurrent use licences or installs you got, now it seems you will not get any "internal use" licences at all. Oh well, it was only a matter of time.
Not sure how good this is for MS - part of the idea of using an MS partner for a project used to be that they used the damned stuff to run their business every day so they would know the pain points etc., but maybe that is no longer the case, I don't know, haven't worked for an MS partner recently.
The whole landscape is changing and everything is moving to cloud and subscription. Maybe this is a deliberate part of that strategy or maybe it is just a last squeeze of the teat on the legacy cow, not sure. MS have got themselves to No.2 in cloud, yet many laughed at Azure when they launched it, I wouldn't underestimate them.