Interesting update. Thanks. Best regards,
Paul On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 10:59 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Microsoft and VMware have indeed been having it out as of late. recently, > where I work, I was on a support call in July ( to India ) with Microsoft > and the support person discovered we were running on VMware and ended the > support call. About the same time the contract for our Enterprise agreement > disappeared from our MS web portal and was replaced with a different one. ( > Um, you cant change a contract after its been signed ). Oh and by the way > the reason we were running this particular app on VMware is because that's > the way the Microsoft techs designed it... and they then denied they had > done that. We pursued. We ended up getting a top MS support person ( in > New York ) to help us and resolve our issue. They were ( eventually ) quite > amicable and when we got the ball rolling the problem was fixed very quickly > and to our complete satisfaction. > > Microsoft's stance at the time was that only Enterprise customers could get > support on VMware ( I had called the non-enterprise support number initially > ) and if they perceived that the problem was possibly due to virtualization, > that we would need to reproduce on physical hardware. I was given a KB > number on the policy. We were OK with that, however I argued that I know a > lot of people using VMware at an enterprise level and that if the MS OS > product couldn't be supported that the likely scenario wasn't to switch to > Microsoft's VM product, something that would in some cases cost millions, > but rather to NOT use microsoft OS when possible. I also argued that a > policy doc on the MS website is NOT the same thing as a EULA or a signed > Enterprise contract and held no legal basis and that we were investigating > the contents of those documents, as well as getting our original signed > agreement back. > > I figure we are small fish on the global MS scene, but the implications of > those items are scalable to any company, and its SO important that any > company or individual no matter how small should voice their position. I had > a feeling we were not alone in discovering these problems. > > Recently while I was visiting Intel at one of their professional things, > someone let fly that MS had changed its policy and that the stance on VMware > had changed. I poked around and indeed the same KB article on MS position > for VMware ( er, 3rd party ) had changed to include support for all if the > product was some sort of Microsoft "partner". It appears some sort of deal > has been struck. > > http://support.microsoft.com/kb/897615/en-us > > http://dcsblog.burtongroup.com/data_center_strategies/2008/08/its-official--.html > > http://edge.networkworld.com/news/2008/090308-vmwares-esx-certified-for-microsoft.html > > > Mark > > > marbux wrote: >> >> Of interest, from VMWare's latest SEC form 10K, by way of Groklaw News >> Picks: >> >> "Some of our competitors and potential competitors supply a wide >> variety of products to, and have well-established relationships with, >> our current and prospective end users. Some of these competitors have >> in the past and may in the future take advantage of their existing >> relationships to engage in business practices that make our products >> less attractive to our end users. For example, Microsoft has >> implemented distribution arrangements with x86 system vendors and >> independent software vendors, or ISVs, related to certain of their >> operating systems that only permit the use of Microsoft's >> virtualization format and do not allow the use of our corresponding >> format. Microsoft has also implemented pricing policies that require >> customers to pay additional license fees based on certain uses of >> virtualization technology. These distribution and licensing >> restrictions, as well as other business practices that may be adopted >> in the future by our competitors, could materially impact our >> prospects regardless of the merits of our products." >> >> >> <http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1124610/000119312508172131/d10q.htm#tx93957_11>. >> >> Best regards, >> >> Paul >> > > _______________________________________________ > EUGLUG mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug > -- Universal Interoperability Council <http:www.universal-interop-council.org> _______________________________________________ EUGLUG mailing list [email protected] http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug
