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Rumor: Microsoft Office Virtualization Edition

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I heard an interesting rumor this week that Microsoft is planning on updating their licensing model in the near future for Microsoft Office to introduce a virtualization version. The way it was described to me is that if you want to migrate your physical desktops to virtual desktops and run Microsoft Office on them, you will need to purchase a special Office Virtualized Edition.

What I haven’t heard is if this will be an additional license fee for Office or not (the way it was described to me made it sound like it was an additional cost to upgrade your current office to run it on a virtualized desktop).

(Note: I’ve pinged numerous contacts familiar with Microsoft licensing and no one else has heard this…)

Since I am in discussions with a number of my clients about desktop virtualization, I’ve gotten some exposure to the ins and outs of Microsoft licensing.  I know that many large enterprises have been pushing Microsoft for a per user licensing model for software applications, and this could very well be just that.  Or is this a sign that Microsoft is concerned that virtual desktops could cut into their profit margins and they are taking a proactive stance to prevent that?

After all, if I have 6000 call center workers spread out around the world in three different time zones and they all need to have MS office on their desktop, today I have to pay Microsoft for 6000 Office licenses.  With virtual desktops I can run 2000 virtual desktops in a data center that all my call center workers access and only have to pay for 2000 Microsoft Office licenses (as one center shuts down another center spins up and re-uses the same virtual desktop).

Microsoft isn’t going to sit by and lose all that revenue.  So hearing about this doesn’t surprise me.  It also won’t surprise me if Microsoft ends up charging more for the Virtualized Edition.  Which leads one to wonder if this is truely a new licensing version or just a virtualization penalty?  Time will tell…

Media and Users in Chorus: It Just Works

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Wow, it sounds like the main stream tech media might be catching up to what the users who have moved from Windows to the Mac OS X have been saying for a few years now: “It Just Works”:

Not that this is anything new to a large number of people…but when a Gartner analyst makes a warning like that against one of the analyst industry cash cows…or was it just stating more of the obvious. When you read through the details, the Gartner analyst are essentially telling Microsoft to turn Windows into the MacOS.  Only Apple already swallowed the horse pill of starting from scratch and upsetting their development community 8 years ago.  It would be interesting to see how Microsoft handles the same situation (which it must).

Microsoft Bids $44.6B for Yahoo

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I open up my morning reading and here is the first thing that grabs me:

Microsoft Offers $44.6 Billion for Yahoo

Of course, something of this magnitude the first place I went for comments was to the Scobleizer. After his stint at MS and his frustrated departure, I knew he would have some interesting thoughts (also a great link to all the buzz around this already).

My initial reaction is that this is a great business merger. Squeeze some huge operating efficiencies (aka, lay off alot of people) and give the combined entity a better chance to compete against Google…not say that they would be able to compete, as the result of that would be seen only a year out and there are a lot of decisions to be made between now and then that will impact the effectiveness of the merger.

I think actually making this work would be tough considering the cultural difference between the two. There would also be the potential for a large exodus of users who don’t want to support MS. Maybe a better acquirer would be Google…as if that would get past the regulators.