In early April, Microsoft announced it would address some of the complaints from European cloud service providers about restrictive licensing policies that made customers pay more to run Microsoft software in cloud environments. not Microsoft. On May 18, Microsoft made public its plans in this regard through a blog post by its president, Brad Smith.
In this blog post, Microsoft outlines five “European Cloud Principles.” But the bottom line is the planned changes, which aim to level the playing field for European cloud providers when it comes to running Microsoft software on-premises, such as Windows, Windows Server, SQL Server and Office. , on their own infrastructure.
Microsoft introduced the outsourcing license restrictions in question in 2019. Customers who used AWS and Google Cloud as Dedicated Hosts to run Windows Server and customers were directly affected, but some of them did not. didn’t realize the magnitude of the impact until their contracts with Microsoft expired this year. Microsoft’s changes to its “bring your own license” terms of service made their contracts more expensive if they wanted to run Microsoft software on anything other than Azure. To justify these changes, Microsoft claimed that its rivals, such as AWS or Google, were always free to take similar measures in terms of licenses and prices.
“Victim of friendly fire in the competition between Microsoft and Amazon”
In April, Brad Smith said that Microsoft would look for ways to address partner concerns that it believed were valid. Microsoft agreed to look into the matter after European antitrust regulators began digging into complaints from partners and customers.
In today’s blog post, Brad Smith says he and other senior Microsoft officials met with the CEOs of two European vendors, as well as other companies in various European countries. “Some of the most compelling comments for me, personally, came from a CEO who said he felt ‘the victim of friendly fire in the competition between Microsoft and Amazon.’ It was hard to hear, but he was right. In recent years, our focus has been on competing with the biggest technology vendors, which has led us to not be as mindful of the impact on our cloud vendor partners. We are making changes to fix this, starting today,” notes the Microsoft president.
Brad Smith adds that Microsoft will provide European cloud service providers with support to enable Microsoft software to run on their cloud infrastructure. This expansion of terms will cover Windows, Office, and Microsoft 365 Apps for businesses and professionals. Microsoft will also make it “easier than ever” to license Windows Server in virtual environments by relaxing licensing rules “which reflected old software licensing practices, where licenses are tied to physical hardware. “. It was one of the biggest complaints from Microsoft’s cloud competitors after licensing changes were announced in 2019.
“Today, Software Assurance benefits do not include license mobility rights for products such as Windows, Office, or Windows Server, so customers must use this software in more restrictive programs or on hardware dedicated specifically to these customers. We will extend Software Assurance to allow customers to use their licenses on any European cloud provider providing services in their own data centers, similar to how they can on Azure today, whether the hardware is dedicated or multi-tenant,” he explains.
Brad Smith also clarified that Microsoft plans to expand the range of products that can be offered to customers at a fixed price for longer terms, “which will bring more stability and price certainty to vendors and their customers.” “.
Source: ZDNet.com