Fri, Jan 12 2007 18:36
bradley
Dear Mr. Ballmer - I'd like to ask you to understand...
Dear Mr. Ballmer:
I've emailed you before.. I've blogged to you before... I've seen you in person before. You seem like a nice reasonable person. You've said before that your goal is to make licensing easier.
May I publically and respectfully ask another goal?
Can you make it easier for us honest people to be honest. While I agree with Nick's comments that he posted to my blog post about the Action pack EULA, and he knows how upset I am about this and agrees with me too, his comments just struck a cord with me. You see, I want being honest to be easy. I want being legal to come naturally. I want being EULA compliant to be a natural thing. I'd like a world where it's easier to be license compliant rather than the current world we live in where it's easier to find a hack on the Internet to crack the activation of Vista than it is to be EULA compliant. I mean I know you will give us extra cool stuff if we are genuine and all that (check out the Windows Ultimate blog) but it still burns through more hours in the day to properly understand and try to be legal and eula compliant than if I'd just give up and go find one of those cracks on the Internet and be done with it.
About two years ago you started a program to get us stick in the mud CPAs to even deem to look at the Microsoft accounting package and pry our fingers off of Intuit's Quickbooks. And the carrot you dangled in front of us USA CPAs was MPAN (Microsoft Accounting Network) and the Action pack software... software that on the MPAN site says it's "a range of Microsoft desktop and server applications for running your practice". Well right now in January of 2007 up to about June of 2007 and even later, the software I need is Windows XP on the desktop. All of the communication from my vendors state that it won't be until June that they will be ready to support Vista. Once my annual subscription of the Action pack needs renewal, the machines that I've used the Action pack version of the Desktop OS need to stop being on XP and be instead on Vista. I'm no longer legally licensed for XP after that renewal. If I'd stay using those XP licenses that I used from the Action pack after my Action pack subscription renewed, I'd be dishonest. I don't like being in this position.
Mr. Ballmer, I don't think you guys up there in Redmond live enough with the real world of business software. Maybe when Mr. Gates is focusing on world health issues that he will see the issues of dealing with upgrading... especially in third world countries where the money isn't there..and even in the USA with critical key health equipment.
If the line of business stuff doesn't support it... we don't upgrade. That's the bottom line here.
So if you expect the Action pack license to provide for ITPros and MPAN members software that we can use to run our practices and our business, many of our key business stuff can't handle it yet.
Do I want to run Vista? Yes. I'm very excited about Bitlocker and Group policy. I'm even going to be at a local Best Buy on the weekend you guys will be launching Vista in New York City just so I can be with real users of Vista and not journalists and bloggers with their Mac Power books. (Okay ... I'll admit... I'm in a weird mood tonight and that was a cheap shot) I'll be there with real customers and end users stating the real facts..things like.. you need Quickbooks 2007 to be able to run your accounting app on Vista... that Microsoft Office Accounting 2007 not the 2006 SBA version is the one you'll need. I'll be telling them about parental control rights (that is really cool btw) and all the other cool stuff...and even that you can enable Parental control rights on a domain. I'll be there with my two year old laptop showing how Vista can run on older equipment and you just don't get that 3d taskbar thingy. (Blowing through all those stories about how it can't run on older equipment) But I'll also be there with my newer box (which I need to use my removable sata trays and build a vista OS) as that one is a newer box that has a better video card that does support it (and does indeed do the 3d view task switcher).
I really and truly WANT to run Vista...but my business needs.... my business software won't let me. This is a major upgrade... the first desktop upgrade in five years. Please can you show reasonableness on your licensing and understand that real people, real businesses, real needs mean that we won't upgrade overnight.
So can you guys in the licensing division be a little more reasonable about this?
The annual expiration of the Action pack subscription should not force you out of a supported operating system (Windows XP) and to one that your business applications cannot yet run on (Vista).
And may I say too that I'm getting a bit disappointed that someone up there in licensing isn't thinking about this stuff earlier...that it takes a media/blog event like the historical hullaballoo over the Vista transfer rights and someone like me asking a stupid question that gets answered to get the unreasonableness of these EULAs exposed. In my var/vap communties all day, folks kept saying that "oh it's not reasonable that they'd force you to upgrade" or "I hope Microsoft sees a little common sense".
I hope, you, or someone else will see this as an unreasonable EULA requirement and change it. And quite frankly..next time.. think about this stuff before it happens in the future and consider the consequences. I don't attempt to even assume to understand your business... but from this side of the wall, this policy just flat out looks stupid and not well thought out at all. It makes it look like your licensing folks have no real world clue about how difficult operating system deployments can be and how long it's going to take us to get up to Vista.
As it stands now, I cannot and will not recommend that any CPA sign up for the MPAN program. Furthermore, I cannot defend Microsoft anymore in my Accounting community when it comes to assuring folks that the licensing terms of the Action pack in the MPAN program may change. There was a fair number of folks that would not see the value in the Action pack, beleiving that at some point in the future, that Microsoft would change the terms and the resulting damage the firm would incur by relying on these Action pack licenses was a risk they would not take.
This EULA clarification has showcased to them that they cannot trust Microsoft's action pack licensing terms to run their businesses on.
So Mr. Ballmer?
When it comes to Vista.. all I ask of you is to be reasonable and patient with us.... please?
The Action pack licensing agreement shouldn't force us to be on Vista. Let us learn about it's good things and want to upgrade when we are ready.
You'll have lots happier customers if you do.
Thank you for your time...
Susan Bradley
MPAN member
Filed under: Rants
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