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On Moving Toward Software Rentals 249

Posted by timothy from the free-software-sidesteps-this dept.
CowboyRobot writes "ACM Queue has an article about the emergence of a service-oriented model of software delivery, supported by the W3C, IBM, HP, and Microsoft. They already have their acronyms down: WSDL (Web Services Description Language), UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration), and WSFL (Web Services Flow Language). The article primarily covers the three phases of negotiating, ending with actual service delivery."
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On Moving Toward Software Rentals More

On Moving Toward Software Rentals

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  • "Service Delivery" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gothmolly ( 148874 ) on Monday September 06, 2004 @06:05PM (#10172150)
    will consist of deployment of a crappy too-thick-to-be-thin client, with poor response time, and broken widgets. The vendor will claim that it is due to either 1) client-side misconfigurations, or 2) unanticipated variations in the environment, both of which will be ironed out via a Professional Services contract accompanying the software "delivery". The end result will be the creation of numerous roles at the client's expense to "manage" and "coordinate" the software delivery, frustration at the end-user level, raises and kudos for the middle managers who jumped on the bandwagon, and fat wallets on the part of the shovelware designers.

    • Licensing for Service Delivery. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ron_ivi ( 607351 ) <sdotno@NOSpAM.cheapcomplexdevices.com> on Monday September 06, 2004 @06:14PM (#10172215)
      This seems an interesting hole in the GPL - use GPL'd technology, but only deliver thing parts of the client to the users; and keep all your GPL-tech-using-yet-proprietary stuff on your server. Since you never "distribute" the server side code, seems it is your to do whatever you want with it.

      Is there a need for a new Creative Commons license type that says "if you server services using this technology, I need to share the source"?

      I think no existing license covers that need very well today.

      • This seems an interesting hole in the GPL - use GPL'd technology, but only deliver thing parts of the client to the users; and keep all your GPL-tech-using-yet-proprietary stuff on your server. Since you never "distribute" the server side code, seems it is your to do whatever you want with it.

        Is there a need for a new Creative Commons license type that says "if you server services using this technology, I need to share the source"?

        Why don't you just leave out all the verbal pussyfooting around, cut to th

        • Re:Licensing for Service Delivery. (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Why don't you just leave out all the verbal pussyfooting around, cut to the chase and say what you mean:

          "If you want to try and sell GPLed stuff, you have to give it away as well."

          You misunderstand the GPL. It's far stronger than that:

          "If you want to try and sell GPLed stuff, you have to give it and the source code that created it away as well."

          And what the parent proposed is stronger still:

          "If you want to try and sell or server services with [this-hypothetical-license]ed stuff, you have to give

      • There's an easier way to bypass the GPL. You release the code, but make it rely on data files which are proprietary, copyrighted, and trademarked.

        This is already done by everyone from id Software to the Mozilla project.
        • And how, exactly would you keep them proprietary once anyone else has access to the code?

          You are completely free to write your own levels for and GPL'ed game engine.

          Repeat after me, kiddies: Free speech, not free beer. It _is_ possible to make money from GPL'd software.
        • Eh? I wasn't under the impression that id was supposed to release their game engines under the GPL? Just because it runs on Linux doesn't mean it must GPLed. So it's not really a hole when it didn't have to be licensed that way in the first place. This is just another example of a commercial piece of software on Linux.

          I also don't really see how Mozilla is a bad GPL citizen. There are scores of derivative projects and the rendering engine can be used by anybody. How are they 'bypassing the GPL?'
      • RMS has always maintained that there should be no restrictions placed on using the software, and actually if your license contains such a clause you will have to make the user click through it, since starting a service using your software is allowed by default in copyright law.

      • If the WSDL file which is served up by the server has a GPL license attached to it, then no client software would be able to use this "code" without themselves being GPL software.

        Right?

        But I suppose a mechanism other than WSDL might be harder to protect in a similar fashion.

      • I think you are correct, and although my company is open-sourcing any modifications we make to the open-source packages we use, there is other code that we are not (more because it is so implementation specific and would be too much work to make a good package out of it). And since we are not distributing any software, just selling browser-based access/use to it, we dont think we are in violation to the GPL.

        As a business, I do have to walk a line between giving away my work that was the big investment of

    • Re:"Service Delivery" (Score:5, Funny)

      by bsharitt ( 580506 ) <bridget@NoSpAM.sharitt.com> on Monday September 06, 2004 @06:31PM (#10172333) Journal
      There's no use in fighting it. They've already got acronyms. When the acronyms come out it's all over.
    • Yes, I think you pretty much covered everything except the obligatory last two:

      n) ???

      n+1) Profit!

    • Re:"Service Delivery" (Score:5, Funny)

      by iamatlas ( 597477 ) on Monday September 06, 2004 @06:41PM (#10172395) Homepage
      The end result will be the creation of numerous roles at the client's expense to "manage" and "coordinate" the software delivery

      So....basically it will create more jobs in the IT sector. If software and implementation were uniformly perfect for all applications and systems, I know that I and many others would be out of a job. That being the case, I for one welcome our new subscribtion-based overlords.

      • Hardly a worthy comment for someone who claims both to be "Atlas" and who advocates for a website called 'promethean-fire'. Our new subscription-based overlords will be a 'mediocrity' in the true sense of the word. If it's wrong, and bad for business, how can you support it, whether it provides you livelihood or not? Can you not find a job without someone pushing broken products?

        • Re:"Service Delivery" (Score:3, Interesting)

          by iamatlas ( 597477 )
          I probably should have prefaced my comment with ::insert tongue firmly into cheak::

          But, as long as we're going to try to remain on topic, let's debate a bit:

          The fact that this may require additional on- or off-site support to implement does not neccesarily mean it will be bad for business. Perhaps it will cost x amount more than current solution to implement due to its unweildy, complex, and buggy nature, but maybe it will produce x^2 more productivity and profits, meaning it both creates more IT jobs for

      • "So....basically it will create more jobs in the IT sector"

        Who said they will be local jobs?

        Remember when the software industry took off. All those support jobs just appeared. But where are they now?
    • Then my money is on Microsoft to dominate this market.

      They a proven track record with this strategy.

    • Re:"Service Delivery" (Score:3, Insightful)

      by awing0 ( 545366 )
      I don't think it has to be that way. The applications could be installed and run locally, but with unique serial numbers or "cd-keys" that query remote servers for your account info. Pretty much in the same way application activation works now. Application reports four hours of usage, you get billed on your account for it. With longhorn on the way with all its DRM crappiness, companies would feel safer deploying applications in this manner, I'm sure.
      • Considering how easy it is to break Windows XP Activation, I wouldn't bet on this method working for more than 10 minutes without someone finding a way to keep the software running locally without reporting or getting authorization from a server. The end result would be inconvenience and frustration for users that cannot connect to the authentication server with massive piracy continuing unabated. Unless DRM can be built into the hardware all the way down to the BIOS level, security of subscriptionware coul
        • yes, but the day that Igor the russian hacker reverse-engineers your authentication server just enought to use luser as username and putin as password, your "rental service" falls apart.

    • Re:"Service Delivery" (Score:4, Informative)

      by flacco ( 324089 ) on Monday September 06, 2004 @06:58PM (#10172526)
      will consist of deployment of a crappy too-thick-to-be-thin client, with poor response time, and broken widgets.

      or it could be a simple web app with some enhancements/extensions as envisioned by the whatwg [whatwg.org], behaving as browser users expect it to behave, designed around internet response times, and thus providing response times that browser users are accustomed to.

      currently i'm moving a client from a godforsaken ms-access app that i wrote many years ago to a web-based application that i intend to host on my own hosted virtual server. no more installation issues to deal with, no more relinking tables every time i ship a new version, no more ms-access-on-the-client requirement to deal with... when i have a new version ready i just upload it to the server and we're done.

      i *am* looking forward to whatwg-like extensions, though, because the user interface is taking a step backward, from the user's perspective. whatwg should address some of those shortcomings.

      The vendor will claim that it is due to either 1) client-side misconfigurations, or 2) unanticipated variations in the environment,

      further argument for web applications. but again - must... improve... interface... !

      both of which will be ironed out via a Professional Services contract accompanying the software "delivery". The end result will be the creation of numerous roles at the client's expense to "manage" and "coordinate" the software delivery, frustration at the end-user level, raises and kudos for the middle managers who jumped on the bandwagon, and fat wallets on the part of the shovelware designers.

      unless a competitor comes along and says "why are you messing around with all that complicated proprietary not-thin-enough client technology for? here is my alternative, which is standards-compliant and requires only a web browser to use." (granted, perhaps a mozilla-based browser, but you'd just be doing them a favor anyway if they're not using one already).

      go whatwg, go!

      • One solution that I helped a friend develop for a very similar problem was to use Flash and its scripting capabilities in conjunction with HTTP POSTs to the real backend.

        My site has a flash emulation of a limited *nix command line. http://www.rexiliusgroup.com/

        If you click your mouse just about 10 pixels to the right of the command prompt you will get a cursor and you can do some basic commands. It was an ugly and quick hack done more out of irony and fun so dont pick on it too badly.

    • Re:"Service Delivery" (Score:2, Interesting)

      by icknay ( 96963 )
      The problem with buying software is that it puts the vendor in the sad position of adding stupid features and witholding bug-fixes in a hope of getting you to upgrade. Really you just wanted the old version with a few bugfixes. With rental, they can keep a small crew keeping it up to date, and we get to send them $20 a year or whatever to keep it running.

      Indeed, customer-annoying moves like changing the file format seem much a feature of the sell-once model. With the rental model, they just want to keep yo
    • I dont think that the only way to deliver software as a service is via SOAP.. My company is doing just that, selling access to software, hardware, and network bandwidth via a browser interface.

      Really the cost we are passing on to our clients is actually more hardware and bandwidth as we use all open-source platform and have written all the software ourselves without outside funding.

      Now can you say the browser interface sucks?.. well I suppose, but I think its a hell of a lot better then fat-thin client s

  • Rentals? As in, no ownership? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rpbailey1642 ( 766298 ) <robert.b.prattNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday September 06, 2004 @06:06PM (#10172154)
    I, for one, am terrified of this. In the first, if you are only renting the software, you do not really own it, so they can basically monitor you, or refuse access to the software if they want. Second, they have to have some way to monitor if the software is working or not, depending on your subscription time, which means either every (SUBSCRIPTION TIME) you'll have to reregister and reenter your code, or they will need to have access to your system (via the network, or in the real world) to reactivate it. Scary.
    • I didn't think about the problem of having to monitor if the software is working or not.
      Other than that I think these companies seem to be accepting the fact that nobody wants to pay high prices for software that is going to become obsolete in matter of months. At least that is the impression I got. Now that they realize that nobody want to pay, they need to find a better strategy of making money. First of all, subscription might be OK for a lot of non-geeks that do not care about their software not being t
      • Some people upgrade every year, but a lot don't. I bought Office 97 6 years ago, and still use it as the office suite on my Windows machines. At $75 for the copy, that's like $1/month.

        I also see the horror scenario, "oh crap, my internet connection just went down, my registration runs out in 6 hours, must have this paper done by tomorrow". I put my faith in things that I own that cannot be taken away.
      • >Wouldn't a suscription method mean that we are going into the direction of a free software method in which we only pay for support and other related services?

        It would if you think it would.

        Joe Looser used to pay $90 for bundled Windows XP OEM Edition before, now he'll pay $10/month with a special 25% discount if he buys 12 months at once.
        And IBM won't even allow you to buy less than 6 months of service...

        All in all - the same shit in a different package.

        Some people will feel great about it, others w
      • Last year I was contracting to IBM when they were doing their whole services push, with their fancy ads and claims that their pictured mythical device that integrates everything application and all their data doesn't exist and your should blah blah blah... Some of us were quite amused by some of the ads and what they were saying. We could never take the WebSphere astronauts seriously :)

        Basically from what I remember, you hand over your IT infrastructure to IBM who provide all of your services, like email

    • Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Monday September 06, 2004 @06:22PM (#10172274) Homepage Journal
      Okay, that's 'the glass is half empty' reaction. What about 'the glass is half full'?

      a.) We all know that software promises are iffy at best. When you need to get a job done, and software promises to do it, it really is no guarantee, is it? Demo ware is sometimes helpful, but few companies do it right. (I'd like to nod in Macromedia and Alias's general direction for making their demo ware work right.) Basically, what they want you to do is buy their software and ... well.. you're stuck with it if it doesn't do what you ask.

      My company recently ran into this. There's an app called ZBrush used for texturing 3D models. It has some really cool features that make organic modelling and texturing quite pleasant. (You've seen this software's work in the latter 2 of the LotR movies.) Unfortunately, it's a ~$500 app, and they haven't released a demo yet. We ended up getting it after watching a live demo at Siggraph, but man, that was a happy coincidence in timing. If we could have 'rented' the software for a week to evaluate it, we'd have been a lot happier.

      b.) Always up to date! Imagine not needing to shell out hundreds of bucks for an upgrade. As long as you're subscribing, you should (in theory, anyway) be using the most up to date software. Done right, this could mean virtually instantaneous security updates, for example. No more people lagging behind with older software perpetuating the problem. No more "I can't open that file!" Etc.

      c.) Mobile licenses. More and more companies are trying to prevent people from installing software on multiple machines. Sadly, those of us with laptops and home stations to do work on get bitten. I'll go back to ZBrush's example. They have a locking scheme kind of like Windows'. It id's itself to your hardware, and that's it, that's the only software you can unlock to. Unless I call them up and ask them politely (and I've heard they are quite happy to do this...) to unlock my software, I can only use it on the one station. Doh. If done right, I should just be able to log in to a server and say "I wanna use this", it'll check that nobody else is using it, and allow it to run. Sort of like how ICQ works.

      d.) Spend less money. I'll use ZBrush as an example, again. First off, I'm reasonably certain that in order to make the subscription scheme work, it has to be competitive with the cost of buying the software outright. I've heard this a number of times before. (Remember, this is 'the glass half full' comparison, not a prediction) My company is going to reach a point where ZBrush will probably be inactive for a long time. If we could cancel/suspend the subscription then, at the end of a year, we could potentially spend less than we did to buy it a month ago.

      Now, I want to reiterate something here. This is simply an optimist's view. Who knows how it'll play out? The worst that'll happen is nobody will want to use it. The best is that we get an experience better than we have today. Works for me.

      • Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by TheGavster ( 774657 ) on Monday September 06, 2004 @06:38PM (#10172383) Homepage
        How about this scenario: You do a bunch of work for a major client. Right before release, your provider tells you that the version of ZBrush you were using is no longer offered. Oh, by the way, the files generated by the last version won't work with the new one. Sorry 'bout that. Conclusion: you're screwed, you no longer have the option of running the old files on the old version until you've migrated, etc. And don't tell me that software vendors don't break backwards compatibility all the time, either.

        By the way, ZBrush now offers a demo: http://pixologic.com/support/contents.html
        • " Right before release, your provider tells you that the version of ZBrush you were using is no longer offered. Oh, by the way, the files generated by the last version won't work with the new one."

          That would be one really really stupid company. I can't think of an app that has ever done that. Not saying they don't exist, but Lightwave opens old version LW files, Photoshop opens old .PSD files, Word opens old .DOC files, Zbrush opens old .ZTL files, etc etc etc.

          I'm sorry, but whoever modded that up as i
        • They do that now as you admit. And they do it because everybody is not on the same application level. So isn't that an argument for rental. They would have no incentive to do it if everyone was on the automatic upgrade path with periodic licences.
        • why would the company not continue to offer the last stable release of the old version to existing customers who chose to keep the old plan? Sort of like the way cell phone plans work today. Many people are grandfathered in on old cellphone plans that are no longer offered or sold, but as long as they keep renewing their subscription they get to keep their old plan. Companies make mistakes, but they will not usually piss of a customer if they can possibly help it. That would be like cutting off your nose to
      • I've found that in one particular area, bug tracking software which needs to be shared across many people, it makes sense for small development companies to go with 3rd party solutions on a month-to-month basis. It's a lot like webhosting in that respects, though unlike webhosting it can be terminated at any time.

        Software rentals probably make the most sense for project-duration needs, especially when some form of remote hosting is involved.

      • Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ScrewMaster ( 602015 ) on Monday September 06, 2004 @06:53PM (#10172480)
        Well, I hope that you are correct in that free-market forces will be able to determine what is best. The real question is whether they will even be allowed to. My own feeling (I know, half-empty, doom and gloom) is that the free-market (i.e., the user base) will have little say in the matter. There is so much desire to maximize profit (as in "squeeze water from a rock") among big software companies that I fear the idea of a total end-user lock-in is irresistible. And as broadband penetration becomes more and more significant (apparently this year the number of high-speed installations exceeded the number of dial-ups) this scheme will become even easier to foist upon us.

        Personally, I detest the idea of automatic updates. I don't want my software changing until I have reviewed whatever the new version offers and have made a considered decision to upgrade. It would be hell on a corporation if Microsoft decided to "autoupgrade" all of its users and suddenly all the user menus changed. Nobody would be able to do anything and productivity would come to a screeching halt. That's an extreme example, of course, but, honestly, most users would rather the software they have simply work in the manner to which they've become accustomed and not be "upgraded" (i.e., change) all the time forcing yet another learning curve. How many of us really use any more than 1% of all the stuff built into, say, Microsoft Office? And if we did learn everything it can do, by the time we have the latest version will have changed so much that our efforts would have been wasted. Office is so complex and so full of features and is such a continually moving target from the user's perspective that having it mutate even more often would hardly be perceived as an improvement.

        And all of this "software as a subscription" business depends entirely upon a reliable Internet (ha) and a software supplier that is able to effectively build and maintain the required network infrastructure. Microsoft has shown, time and time again, that it cannot be trusted to manage a big network: for example, their instant messaging services have had repeated failures on a global scale. I, for one, would not be happy if my company was unable to even send an email because Microsoft's subscription management servers went offline for a while. And that will happen, you know that. And what happens when a company suffers an Internet outage and can't get access to the server-side component of their critical business applications? No, there are definite advantages to maintaining ownership of important software and being as independent as possible of the vendor.
      • My guess is they (the vendors) are looking at subscriptions as parrallel to the telecom industry when cell phones came out.

        You have cancellation fee's, minutes, confusing rules, and contracts.

        This is a great way to suck money off you. If your reception sucks too bad you keep paying or end up paying a fine and a number change.

        Zbrush would likely love to charge your business for a minimal 2 year contract to prevent you from leaving. Or would have you sign a horrible EULA for the rental agreement.

        Since you
    • First, you never really owned any software anyway. When you "buy" the software, you really purchase a LICENSE to use it.

      That said, there are lots of details that would need to be worked out to get this working properly. For example, I would not expect that EVERY time you use it, you must access a server (this is assuming the software is actually client-side and not a web service running on a server somewhere). Would be quite hard to use Word (for example) on an airplane with no internet access. So I w
    • Not that I disagree with your sentiment, but all those apply to Google as well:
      • You don't own it
      • They can monitor you
      • They can refuse access if they want
      While software rental increases the amount of potential pain for users, it's still also be possible for a company to do a very good job, both technically and ethically.
    • This isn't new.... not by a long shot.

      It's odd that when someone puts some marketing spin on the practice... it actually gets noticed.

      I deal with several software packages designed for POS and accounting. They each have a time out period and a new code must be entered to keep it running.

      It's a support + software functionality rolled into one. I don't like it, but the implementations already there.

      I am currently writing my own point of sale/accounting software package for video store rentals. I'm not sur
    • You don't own it now - if you did, you could do whatever you wanted with it; modify it, sell it to someone else, etc.

      The only thing this will do is "expire" your software rendering it unusable after a time - which is the part that I think really sucks ass.
    • First of all, the software companies say you don't "own" the software anyway, just the media it comes on. That's the official story.

      Secondly, if you've got antivirus software, you are almost certainly already paying to rent without realizing it. Except as you've already noted, they call it a "subscription," those sneaky bastards. The same with MMORPGs. It'll be coming very soon with Microsoft also. Why do you think they're readying their own antivirus product? They're going to push that along with oth
    • All that on top of spiders and the dark. Do you ever leave your room.

      Seriously, do you think they are going to watch everything each of their clients do and at a whim stop them using the software. Do you seriously think even MS could get away with a contract like that.

      There are already plenty of software products which have annual licence costs and which require new keys at licence time. The world hasn't ground to a halt yet.

      You must be able to think of some better reasons to fear this than that big b

    • Think of it more as a utility. Many things in life that you depend on, you dont own.

      My company is like salesforce.com in that it is 100% browser based and you are using it to manage parts of your business, completely different application and market but its still a rental/subscription/usage model.

      The one thing I would look for that we built into our system, is control and access of your data. Just like a hosting company you would be dumb to have the only copies of your HTML on their server. Our system

  • Nice idea, but... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bblazer ( 757395 ) * on Monday September 06, 2004 @06:09PM (#10172178) Homepage Journal
    This sounds like a great idea. There have been times when I needed a piece of software just for a one or two time use, and the only things out there for my particular need had high license fees. However, what bothers me is that MS is involved with it. I am worried that they will make the technology OS specific, and finally get a foothold in the internet 'standards' (read MS standards) that they have been trying to do for so long.
    • You do realize that they have the potential to satisfy your requirements at a resonable cost despite being Microsoft?
      Then why worry if they'll make it OS or whatever specific?

      Besides, I'm sure their stuff will be cheaper than IBM's.
      Also - if they don't join (with proprietary technology or not) prices will be higher and choices will be less.

    • Oh, I'm sorry, yo missed the point about minimums, didn't you. It'll be just like seat licensing - $1000 for the first copy, $2000 for ten copies. Your first day will be 90% of the basic subscription, but you can extend it for 364 more days for just 10% more.

  • WIM (Score:2, Funny)

    by bobblebob ( 758047 )
    >They already have their acronyms down: WSDL (Web >Services Description Language), UDDI (Universal >Description, Discovery, and Integration), and WSFL >(Web Services Flow Language). And WIM Who Ivited Microsort

    • Re:WIM (Score:2, Funny)

      by Geburah ( 610977 )
      And WIM Who Ivited Microsort

      When I saw the word "Microsort" I all of a sudden got this mental picture of tiny yellow guys with antennas, about the size of thimbles, called "Booquards" working relentlessly under strict watch from the bigger general Booquards. They needed to hurry and sort various nick nacks. The intergalactic demand for nick nacks is quite high these days, and the distribution of them is very important. Though, Baglork, the first yellow booquard I imagined, is sad because he has to work o
  • Everything I want for computer use is pretty much existing in a state I already own (Office, Visual C), or is being developed by a more open/donaiton system (Firefox,Thunderbird,Filezilla,Sunbird). There's a limited amount of applications I would LIKE, and none that I NEED, that don't really exist yet. So why in hell would I pay a monthly service fee for word? When I believe Word 97 was just fine, and now instead prefer OpenOffice more(majority of the time I just use notepad.exe).

    The only avenue I see th
    • agreed.

      their attitude seems "we can't make better software so lets just fuck about with pricing schemes".

      seems to be inspired by the mobile phone ringtone market - pieces of crap served at $1+ a pop to people who don't know better.
    • Yes but for very specialized apps that you only use once in a while it could make a lot of sense.
      For example i'm in a very little (4 ppl) software company, we only have to modelize new apps at most twice a year, but the soft costs huge bucks for us.
      If we could just rent the soft two weeks when we're starting a new project instead of buying it and maybe have to rebuy it the year after because some needed features are added, it would be worth it.
  • Wasn't it not long ago we have this ASP, which gave publishers a new way to sell and distribute software and software services? How is this ASP compared to the new Software Rentals scheme?
    • Software Rentals was tried in the late 80's, but got squashed by the BSA and Microsoft, who were more interested in sales and upgrades, and were very concerned about piracy (think about all the people who rent a DVD from Blockbuster, rip their own copy, and return it never to rent it again). I think Beagle Brothers was one of the resellers that tried it... could be wrong (someone correct me if they know).

      The authors talk convincingly about the price negotiation that might occur at the time of the service

  • What is it 2001 all over again? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Asprin ( 545477 ) <gsarnoldNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Monday September 06, 2004 @06:28PM (#10172315) Homepage Journal

    I thought the market already rejected this idea!

    Oh well, even if they didn't, I can't see this approach finding any more than a niche market because for commodity software, the price has to be low enough to outweigh the benefits of ownership.

    Nobody is going to pay $150/year to rent MS Office Pro when OpenOffice is free to own. $30/year, maybe, but then MS has to make a decision about whether that price is too low to be worthwhile. Actually, at $30/year *I* have to wonder if it's worth it, but then I can't stand the last few version of office because of all the annoying "non-features" I have to turn off to get actual work done.

  • Web applications anyone? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SlashdotMeNow ( 799901 ) on Monday September 06, 2004 @06:30PM (#10172330)
    I don't know what the hell this article is all about. Software as a service EXISTS ALREADY and has been around for years! Ever heard of web-applications? Like, say WEB MAIL?!?!

    Thin client = web browser.

    We run a subscription-based software service, over the web. As the net gets faster, latency goes down, and web-apps will become more and more like desktop apps. Sure desktop apps will always be a bit faster, but for many applications an HTML interface works just fine.

    All these new acronyms are just a waste of time. The only thing it will achieve is a PhD for whoever the idiot is that worked on those specs.
    • I was thinking the same thing.

      Yahoo! for example allows you to rent games via their "Games on Demand" service... 3 bucks gets a game for 3 days, completely streamed to your PC.

      But this is the same reason Microsoft killed Netscape, they were afraid that Netscape would become the interface for all new applications. I've already talked about this before on Slashdot, so I really don't feel like going into it all over again.

      Simply: Microsoft is powerful because they provide the user-land. That is kernel+gui

  • Dequeue ACM Queue (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jeffrey Baker ( 6191 ) on Monday September 06, 2004 @06:34PM (#10172356)
    The ACM Queue is an interesting publication. Every month they turn it over to a vendor to promote their latest scheme. It's a brilliant advertising vehicle, where the magazine *is* the advertisement. For example, an article in the May issue on the benefits of TCP offload engines written by iReady, makers of TCP offload engines. In the same issue, an article on why text mining is replacing information retrieval, from a company who would like to sell you text mining software. And that's just me flipping through the first issue I could find laying about my home. I think everything between the covers of the ACM Queue should be ignored.

  • Software architecture term, not business model (Score:5, Insightful)

    by boatboy ( 549643 ) on Monday September 06, 2004 @06:35PM (#10172361) Homepage
    SOA refers to a method of software architecture that is en vouge- not just a sneaky business model as the post suggests. I'm sure some businesses will jump on the SOA bandwagon for the idea of subscriber-based income, but those that do so for that reason alone will fail.

    Web Services, WSDL, etc., all parts of implementing SOA, are essentially ways to provide software services via some network transport (typically HTTP). This makes sense for alot of things. For example, integrating inventory systems in real time. In days gone by, Company A would provide some random way for Company B to access it's inventory/price sheet. Text files, spreadsheets, EDI, etc. All SOA does is apply a machine-readable contract to the process. It says "this server will answer requests that look like ABC with data that looks like XYZ." WSDL, Web Services, etc. are all just about defining that "contract" to cover things like security, data types, etc.

    Ironically, this allows for more diversity in the actual implementations. It doesn't matter if your service is provided on a $20,000 HP/W2K3 box running IIS or a $200 Linux box running Apache- as long as it provides a description of it's service, others can consume it- again using whatever language they choose. There are already implementations for most of these standards for Java, PHP, Perl, .NET, C++, and many other languages.

    So, put up the tin foil, this isn't a massive conspiracy to get you to pay each time you open your "word processor service." It's just a better way to provide data services where they make sense.
    • All SOA does is apply a machine-readable contract to the process. It says "this server will answer requests that look like ABC with data that looks like XYZ." WSDL, Web Services, etc. are all just about defining that "contract" to cover things like security, data types, etc.

      I don't see a great deal of utility in spelling out the syntax of an interface, unless one cares to solve the Halting Problem. The syntax of an interface is perfectly meaningless without also describing the semantics of the interface,

  • Ah yes! Finally! (Score:4, Funny)

    by st0rmshad0w ( 412661 ) on Monday September 06, 2004 @06:36PM (#10172374)
    I for one am all over this, please please please let the operational state of my crappy ISP's routers determine whether or not I can get any work done!

    "Sorry boss, I can't get that report to you cuz some part of the internet's down."

    • This brings up an interesting point. What if Microsoft, or some other large vendor of commonly used software, went to the subscription model and someone DDOS'd the authentication servers (kind of like what happend to WindowsUpdate)? How much money would they and their clients lose as a result of everyone being locked out of their software? This is too much of a single point of failure for people to be comfortable with.
  • Package anyway you want it comes down to my not owning something I paid for.
  • I have a hard time swallowing the marketing spin about the customer benefits of this service-oriented approach to software sales. This model is simply a steady revenue stream for software vendors, who will then no longer have to justify to people the advantages of upgrading to the latest version of their software - they simply switch off the software if discontinue payments. As a software developer, I admit this is a deal is fantastic, there's basically no downside, just an upside. As a customer, I much pre

  • I do not get it. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by angel'o'sphere ( 80593 ) <angelo.schneider ... e ['oom' in gap]> on Monday September 06, 2004 @06:47PM (#10172428) Journal
    What has UDDI, WSDL and WSFL to do with renting of software?
    No I did not RTFA ....
    The poster of the story should have made his story better to get me to RTFA ...
    WSDL ^= CORBA IDL for XML RPC aka SOAP
    UDDI ^= universal directory and discovery service, aka a phonebook or DNS for SOAP
    WSFL ^= web sergvice flow language aka process or work flow definition for web services or web based applications

    That all is TECHNIQUE,
    renting is a BUSINESS MODEL.

    Most of the poster to this article seem not to see that difference.

    angel'o'sphere
    • agreed. That's exactly what I thought the gov't agency I used to contract for was heading towards the same thing to unify there diverse development houses. It had nothing to do with renting software.

      It's interesting that there is a new class of products (both hardware and software) emerging over this "service oriented architecture". For instance what if you are handling all your data interchange via SOAP and have to have certain credentials to access certain rows of data? In other words, the app functions

  • The final stage of intellectual property law? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ShatteredDream ( 636520 ) on Monday September 06, 2004 @06:48PM (#10172442) Homepage

    The first step for the corporate elite in the 1870s-1930s was to try to remove the idea from the public consciousness that natural law is a legitimate basis for our legal system. Then it began to push for a steady expansion of intellectual property law into previously unacceptable domains. Originally patents were very hard to get, you had to produce something truly unique, now you can patent business models!

    This is all part of a general push away from an ownership society to a corporatist renter society. Capitalism is not to blame here, fascism is, because it is capitalist doctrine that is directly at odds with copyright holders. Capitalism gave us the concept of a government protecting everyone's property rights and not regulating most aspects of the economy to ensure that no class of business had an advantage over another. It was fascism that gave birth to the idea of controlling the economy to "protect industry."

    The software rental model is intended to be the final blow to the idea that customers should have a property right in software. Pseudo-capitalists can come out all they like about how "choice" is what really matters, but choice is utterly irrelevent in every respect when basic property rights are not an option anymore. When no one can own their software in any way, to any degree, the difference between competitors becomes inherently pathetic and trite, just like the major parties in 2000 and 2004.

    So what happens? Software companies use patents to protect their business model where copyright law isn't enough, by going after upstarts offering an ownership-friendly model.

    But what many geeks and nerds won't get out of this, is that this battle has been raging for not a few decades but for about 144, the first battle being the American Civil War. The public schools frequently gloss over three very curious facts about the Civil War, because that would make Abraham Lincoln look like the most fascist stooge in American history:

    • The south seceded over the tariff, even Karl Marx said that the tariff, not slavery, was the issue [blindmindseye.com].
    • The founders of the CSA, when you read a bit of their writings, were rabidly anti-corporation by the standards of their day, and despised the system of "internal development" which was basically corporate welfare that was fueled by the tariff.
    • Over 600,000 Americans, by today's population about 4,200,000-5,000,000 died in a war to protect the rights of corporations. Kinda hard to argue it was to protect slaves, and not corporations, seeing as how it came hot on the heels of the dred scott ruling.

    Now does it become clearer, when you consider the almost 1 and a half century history of this fight, why the federal government really is a government of the people, by the people and for the corporations? Look at the push for things like UCITA, the goal is to essentially in the long run whittle down and destroy the state contract laws and nationalize them, so that the states, the governments much closer to you and your wishes, and thus further from corporate control than the feds, cannot protect you from the monied interests.

    There never has been a conspiracy, because the elite has always had the audacity to operate in the open. For the last several decades, they have unabashedly eschewed any pretense of being Adam Smith-style capitalists and their economic model draws upon a more sophisticated, and moderately liberal version of Mussolini's fascist doctrines. What do you think, "protecting and advancing American economic interests" really means? Adam Smith would call it that vile system of Mercantilism which was an influence on socialism and at odds with laisez faire capitalism.

    People have asked me why I vote libertarian, it is because they are capitalists. The party was born and bred from an ideological pedigree concerned with the minimization of the elite's power and influence and the preservation of an ownership society

  • Article is unrelated to software as a service (Score:3, Informative)

    by YU Nicks NE Way ( 129084 ) on Monday September 06, 2004 @07:06PM (#10172599)
    I was really puzzled by the three acronyms used in the summary. WSDL, UDDI, and WSFL are related to web services, not software rentals. They refer to the protocol negotiation, server discovery, and work flow handling steps in a contract negotiation, respectively. WSFL, in particular, is of no use whatsoever in the software rental model.

    Someday, maybe one of the editors will read the submissions before they post them? I'm paying for their services by accepting their ads -- keep this up, and I'm blocking the ads here.

  • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • software companies are buying up or being bought out by internet service providers. Until that happens, the goals of each industry are at odds.

    It is now in the best interests of ISPs to support OSS. Currently, Open Source has massive bandwidth requirements and ISPs stand as the only real barrier to access to free software. It is better for them to support OSS, through mirroring/etc, than to support software subscriptions, which have equal bandwidth requirements yet also take some proceeds from the consu

  • Fundametal Flaw in Software Service/Rental (Score:3, Insightful)

    by JGski ( 537049 ) on Monday September 06, 2004 @07:37PM (#10172809) Journal
    The fundamental flaw in the software service/rental model is that it is being rammed down the throats of software consumers by software producers, which might have a snowball's chance iff such vendors have absolute (i.e. monopoly) market power. None truly do; not even Microsoft can say that.

    The problem is service/rental is that you become beholden to the service, thus you incur a hidden cost due to risk because you could run the risk of losing access to your own data or processes if you can't make the monthly payments. In the non-rental mode, s/w to control your data and processes become sunk cost at worst with ready substitution of the status quo in lieu of new purchases (expenses). There is no compensation for this added cost for the user in the rental model, while the producer is gaining a cashflow series that was originally a single transction - software rental == higher NPV for the seller and lower NPV for the buyer, making it a simple and audacious market power grab.

    Rightly, buyers will expect some compensation (I've yet to hear a single argument s/w rentals that really holds water) to justify switching. Otherwise you can expect the creation of non-rental substitutes (Open Source?) or the creation of black markets.

    JG

  • How long have we been hearing software as a service has been coming? Web services were going to revolutionize the web and everything was going to be subscription.

    And now it's closer than ever. Riiight. The only company I've seen make a success of it is SalesForce.com. Siebel made noise with IBM about a year ago with a plan to offer hosted service...haven't heard anything more about that, either.

    Part of the problem might be people really don't want to rent software. I think a certain segment of the

    • Actually web services are kinda cool. WSDL + Java == really raelly easy. Well maybe not that easy, but Java's abilioty to do RMI makes WSDL and Java as easy as making function calls.

      Anyway, my company is now moving towards We Services. I can see this becomimg more popular as time goes on to. Web Services will make sharing data easier.

      In our case we have an application that has a database. Currently our clients direct populate our database. This leads to problems because NONE of the necessary edit che

  • I can see pros and cons to this.

    On the one hand, I don't want to not "own" something I buy. Yes, I know about software licences etc., but until they're tested in court, I don't believe that I can be bound by a contract that:
    - I don't sign
    - is only presented to me after I've paid my money at the shop, gone home, unpacked the box, inserted the CD and started "setup.exe" or whatever
    - seems to present me with no benefits for my requested compliance with a huge bunch of legalese that is beyond the scope for a
  • Or at least the financial sections of businesses won't.

    If the software is used frequently enough to be of use, there is currently no financial benefit to paying as you use it unless you are perhaps already paying a subscription fee for usage (mainframe software for example).

    Additionally, how do you budget for this software. Companies typically like to make up a sheet saying we will spend X amount of dollars on this 'solution' and then expect you to stick to it. Have you ever tried to change or add on to
  • The article says that one of the two main problems with the way things are now is the inadequacy of current models to achieve software flexibility

    And that in an environment where any business is able to choose between different Operating Systems, different middleware structures, different applications with sometimes radically different ways of providing a solution and lots of competition between vendors of various sizes who will do anything for you to get your work. That all might be hard to manage and is

  • How useful is:
    • A virus scanner without regular updates?
    • Payroll software without the current tax formulas?
    • Legal software without the latest laws and precedents?
    • "Glass cockpit" avionics without current traffic info, frequencies, weather etc?

    Anything that requires regular updates lends itself to a rental model. Doesn't mean you have to ASP the whole thing. And btw, what's new here? Who would want to rent an app like Excel that's used frequently but rarely changes? Whatever Microsoft might want, there's s

  • I think we have the mysterious second step in our famous sequence:

    1. Invent a free OS that works via HTTP.
    2. Find some suckers to rent that OS.
    3. Profit!

    Okay, so some of the kinks have yet to be worked out.
  • There is so much fantastic Free Open Source software around these days, who the heck bothers *buying* software, let alone renting it...

    Is this the last gasp of the proprietary software business, desperately looking for ways to fleece the customer for every last penny ?

    Thanks, but you can keep your software "rentals".

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