Microsoft postpones shift to New Commerce Experience subscriptions

Microsoft has indefinitely postponed the date on which its Cloud Solution Providers (CSPs) will be required to sell software and services licences on new terms. Those new terms are delivered under the banner of the New Commerce Experience (NCE). NCE is intended to make perpetual licences a thing of the past and prioritizes …

[Pascal Monett]

"customers will be asked to sign up for the scheme soon"

A contract is a contract.

You can't go changing the terms of the contract on your own.

Unless, of course, this is just a click-and-you-agree deal, in which case it is everything wrong with business on the Internet.

If said customers say no, then what ?

I don't see Borkzilla just cutting them off.

[Ashto5]

Re: "customers will be asked to sign up for the scheme soon"

I do

It is not about the customer it is about the income stream and if some firms have to lose so that MS wins, then I expect MS to just do it; they do have deep pockets.

[Roj Blake]

Re: You can't go changing the terms of the contract on your own

You can if:

a) the contract says you can;

or

b) you're the British government (according to the British government).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "customers will be asked to sign up for the scheme soon"

the trick is in the fine print: "Terms are subject to change without notice" Click here to agree O

[Anonymous Coward]

but but fuel prices

MS says it will cost more to drive your data to it's destination due to fuel prices, that or, the MS executives just want a pay raise.

Which means, Linux will gain another .1% or a little more market share.

[WhereAmI?]

Sometimes it does depend on the subscription fee as to whether it suits the end user. I have a subscription to Adobe Photoshop/Lightroom at £9.95 per month. When it was first presented to me, my instinctive answer was 'f--- off!' until I worked out the long-term cost based on the price of the previous CS6 boxed set. Assuming a major boxed set upgrade every five years (not the more usual one or two) and no uptick in price, the subscription still came out around £100 cheaper over the five years compared to buying a single new boxed set. There isn't much of a downside as if I decided to kick Adobe into touch, quite a few OSS packages can open .psd files. So why don't I? Unfortunately Photoshop is the only package I've found that can handle .dds files easily and I make heavy use of textures. Nvidia do a standalone converter but it's fixed-size and near-impossible to read on a 3820-pixel monitor.

[Anonymous Coward]

Photoshop was $250 at the end. Your 5 year subscription: 12 * 5 * 10 = $600

$250 vs. $600

Don't worry, you're not alone in thinking you're getting a deal.

The truth is that Adobe innovates so little that even if they charged $1 they'd be making a profit. I heard they fired developers every 10 years to hire new, lower paid ones..

[Andy The Hat]

More to the point, you pay for and "own" a physical licence and *are* allowed to sell it on second hand.

The user subscription model is a hands down win for the provider on all fronts. At least the user gets the benefit of automatic licence control, updates, price increases etc ...

Look at it another way - if it wasn't a cash cow Microsoft and Adobe wouldn't be doing it. :-(