Peter Kaufman said:
HI D,
I appreciate your post and I have a few comments inline
Me too.
Peter
This is exactly my point.
And there aren't a whole lot of people who live and breathe licensing, which
is why I gave you the link to LicenseOnline. It's all they do; they ought to
have a clue.
it's
Again, this just confirms that it is needlessly complicated. Even
after a seminar you are still not confident enough to pursue it. I
have MCP - I've studied it too. This is not an accident. I believe it
is part of a deliberate and ruthless marketing strategy.
I think it's more a matter of layer upon layer of different options. But
either way, it is what it is. It's not likely to get less complicated any
time soon.
Not worth it? Hey, it is my responsibility - that is what they pay me
for here.
Well, it's not worth it for my business model. I don't/won't/can't sell
enough licenses to make learning the ins and out of it appealing. And part
of the point of running my own business is that I don't have to do what I
don't want to do. I don't want to learn about licensing, so I don't. I don't
want to do my own taxes, either. If you're getting paid to do it and have no
choice, that's a different ball of wax.
Should I just pay MS whatever they tell me - "yes sir here
is my (company's) money I guess I just have to manage all those
computers the same as the Windows 98 days and forget about the Open
License Plan whatever that is and sorry to bother you.." I do not work
that way.
No, you research it though people who are knowledgeable enough to sell some
quantity of the product. Get different vendors' opnions.
Well, once again you are just confirming that it is one of the most
complex and least understood and understandable areas that an I.T.
professional must deal with, and MS will offer all kinds of technical
assistance through these groups and other channels, but not on
licensing.
MS doesn't officially offer support through these groups, they just provide
the forum. And MS does offer licensing info through other channels.
These newsgroups are hosted by MS and not necessarily answered by them, so
any info you get here is *not* "from Microsoft." A licensing group would be
the same thing -- end-users and some pros swapping information, but it's not
something I'd rely on for accurate information about licensing.
not
Ouch! You are a buyer and you would just believe the
manufacturer/sales agent?
OK, who else should I deal with? I can call MS for information, or I can
call the distributor, who is also in direct contact with MS, who deals with
licensing daily, and is my cheapest legal source for MS software. I'm going
to have to buy from them, anyway, if I want to sell directly to an end-user.
They know what can be upgraded from what, how many I need to buy, who is
authorized to buy and use certain software, etc. Seems like two good
sources. Anyone else is another step removed from the source, and is
probably buying from the same people I would. There aren't that many
channels that licenses can possibly go through.
I never said I would hold them responsible which I could not anyway,
any more than I could for technical advice.
But some people might, and have. If you accidentally format your personal
computer because of advice on a newsgroup, that's one thing, but buying a
couple hundred wrong licenses from a bad source would be disaster.
Please read my original
post again. I just asked for anecdotal experiences, not a definitive
answer.
You asked where to buy a specific licensing product and pointed to a web
site that you said seemed to be contrary to what you'd heard elsewhere.
Unless you're talking about a previous post, which I never saw. Seems like a
pretty specific question, and you also said that you hoped an MVP or MS
employee would have info. So, while you might have been thinking about
anecdotal info, what I read looked like a pretty specific question. And not
likely to get much of an answer from a group like this where end-users are
trying to figure out what's wrong with their computers. I doubt that many
people here deal with licensing at all, much less your specific question.
Taking _any_ advice from a Usenet group is iffy, right? But as
you are hanging out here I assume at the end of the day you are
finding and perhaps giving, useful information.
Technical info and a few re-directs, as in your case. I know enough about
licensing to know that it's best addressed by an expert.
As to initials, well, I do pay more attention to MVP and MSFT as they
have saved my butt many times over and rarely have I regretted taking
their advice.
Better than the trolls that hang out, but not official by any means. On the
other hand, there are plenty of non-M people who consistently give good
advice. And some that are good for a laugh now and then
Sorry, I don't see the logic in that any more than if I am big enough
to have 3 servers then it follows I know how to deal with all the
thousands (should I say hundreds of thousands) of possible bugs,
anomalies, and just plan weirdness that a domain might have to deal
with. Why would it be legitimate to ask for technical, but not
licensing advice?
Because licensing is complicated. Complicated questions tend to get sent
elsewhere even if it's technical. You might get a response to how to format
your hard drive, but no one's going to give you blow-by-blow how to choose
components, build the computer, and install Windows step by tedious step.
If you have three servers, it's likely that either you know all about them,
or you bought them from someone who is providing the support, because that's
what they do. So chances are you've got someone to ask, just like if you are
buying licenses, you'd likely have someone to ask. In your case, you don't
have the resources and/or contacts, but you're probably in the minority.
I don't trust what they told me. That is the reason I posted here.
BTW, I think things are worse in non-first world countries - harder
to get straight answers, product is more expensive, and policies less
flexible (I live in Thailand)
Maybe that's the problem. You probably have a more limited supply of people
who actively sell the licenses. In the US, you might find more people
selling them, and/or you'd have closer contact with MS.
Yes, MS does not want comparative information to get out. That is the
real reason for this. What other product in the whole world is this
complicated to buy? I mean we are talking about *5* or more copies of
Windows XP Pro not an MRI machine!
MRI machine is probably easier. Hopefully more expensive.
I will state again I did not ask for advice but for anecdotal
experiences. It was a simple question: has anyone bought or know if
they can buy an OLP Windows XP for new computers (no OS) in USA or the
like. I am told here that I have to buy OEM or retail boxed (or buy it
twice). That does not sit right. I just do not believe it is that way
everywhere.
I haven't bought OLP in any form, but did you check LicenseOnline? If I had
to buy it as an end-user, that's one of the places I'd try.
Interesting that MS gave me the option of OEM because in fact we are
(which they know) end user not a manufacturer.
Rules for buying OEM have loosened a whole lot, so I'm not terribly
surprised.
Happy hunting.
