Impact of Microsoft taking over Enterprise Account renewals starts to 'bite'

The sweeping changes Microsoft is making to its licensing incentives for large service providers is taking hold. Shares in London Stock Exchange listed Bytes Technology Group (BTG) sank more than 25 percent Wednesday morning after the Microsoft reseller confirmed profits are being dented by customers delaying buying decisions …

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't read the full article,

But isn't this just a case of parasites dying off now the host has twigged what they are up to ?

I am really struggling to think of an instance where a reseller has actually added value to anything they resell.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Haven't read the full article,

Six of one, half a dozen of the other. The middlemen will have done whatever work was needed to set up the deal. Once that's in place Microsoft doesn't need them. It's hard to differentiate between the two who's the parasite and who's being parasitised.

Of course we know who's really being parasitised - the users.

[ecofeco]

Re: Haven't read the full article,

This. There are no good guys in this situation and the end users are being hosed.

[MatthewSt]

Re: Haven't read the full article,

Up to a certain size it's difficult to deal with Microsoft directly and they push you towards partners. Helps them reduce front-line requirements as the partner deals with the easy things

[JimmyPage]

Re: the partner deals with the easy things

Not in my experience. They just become like Currys and refer you back to MS and say "you deal with it".

[Omnipresent]

they could just

NOT take home a billion dollars a month in pocket money, but that would be too thoughtful and right to be a part of the plan.

[ecofeco]

Re: they could just

That's just crazy commie talk!

/s in case needed.

[Anonymous Coward]

As I recall these guys used to be the ones who could figure out MS licensing. Ever since 365 even they gave up trying to understand it so really what is the point now. Now MS dosen't know its own licensing agreements or even what products it sells anymore so why pay someone to not tell you when you can not be told for free?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they need to snaffle some of the technocratic licensing Gestapo from Oracle or Broadcom ??

[StewartWhite]

Gestapo!? Gazpacho!

Get with the program! Marjorie Taylor Greene has made it clear that there was no such thing as the Gestapo - it's the Gazpacho police as you well know.

In France they had the Vichyssoise gendarmes during the collaboration years of WW2 (other chilled soups are available).

[Roland6]

No, I expect they want to emulate Broadcom.

Dealing direct with large accounts gives greater access to what is going on and to “encourage” greater usage and dependency on Microsoft products: MS do not want their cash cows large customers moving to Linux etc.

[BobChip]

do not want their customers moving...

Tough cookies M$. Like King Canute, the tide has turned and there is now no stopping it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Who Else Will Suffer…

…the likes of SoftCat maybe??

[ColonelDare]

For FOSS's sake!...

I note some are trying to break the habit [cf Denmark etc al.] but wouldn't it be nice if all that money and effort went into development, not just lawyers' and accountants' fees?

But then I'm only an engineer so what do I know?

[Anonymous Coward]

Useless

Currently working with a client who has been back and forth to their "value-added reseller" for about 3 months, asking for advice about porting some of their long-held MS licenses to cloud and MSPs.

VAR keeps saying they can't do what they want to, and then send links to Microsoft documents which literally say the exact opposite.

Eventually after enough escalation, query got through to someone at the VAR actually capable of reading and logically parsing English sentences, and it got sorted.

From what I can tell, zero value added. They'd undoubtedly have been better off dealing directly with Microsoft.

Longer term they're planning to ditch as much Microsoft stuff as they can, but that's another story...

[Roland6]

Re: Useless

> Longer term they're planning to ditch as much Microsoft stuff as they can, but that's another story...

Then they are definitely better off dealing with a poor performance VAR; less likely to get the full on MS strong shmoozing of the exec’s.

[Kurgan]

Live by the Microsoft, die by the Microsoft

These VARS (or LSP if you like) have built their whole business on locking customers in to MS products, and now they lose everything because they have locked themselves in, too, and MS has dumped them.

I'm so NOT sorry for them.