5 ms·
I've been pretty displeased with how Microsoft has chosen to alienate Customers the last few years. I've made a good since the late 90's installing and support
by EvanAnderson 7y ago
I've been pretty displeased with how Microsoft has chosen to alienate Customers the last few years. I've made a good since the late 90's installing and support Microsoft software in small businesses, and the changes in the last few years, particularly with Windows 10 and the associated Server versions, have been distressing.
I will say that I've never found the Open License program to be a tremendous hassle. There was good cost savings to be had using transferable licenses, and the product use rights and other terms and conditions were clearly spelled-out. Dealing with resellers was the worst part of it, but I managed to find good resellers who would mostly just do what I asked for and not hound me with sales-gerbil nonsense. The volume license management website was actually fairly nice, and was useful for keeping track of a Customer's license inventory.
I've had a hard time getting much free/open-source software adoption in my small business Customers. They almost always have a mission-critical application that keeps them locked to Windows (or SQL Server, Office, Exchange, etc), and no budget or desire to finance software development. The value proposition of spending money on the proprietary software is often just good enough to make it worth the cost and draconian licensing.