Microsoft EU Cloud Revisions Just So Happen To Exclude Google, Amazon (arstechnica.com) 38
Facing European antitrust scrutiny, Microsoft has made it easier to virtualize its software on non-Microsoft cloud infrastructure -- just so long as that infrastructure isn't owned by notable competitors Amazon, Google, or Alibaba. From a report: The conflict, months in the making, is striking for a company that has largely avoided the antitrust scrutiny of its rivals, and eagerly sought to distance itself from the anti-competitive complaints and government actions that beset Microsoft in the late 1990s. Microsoft outlined the changes that would take effect on October 1 in a blog post. Nicole Dezen, chief partner officer, wrote that Microsoft "believes in the value of the partner ecosystem" and changed outsourcing and hosting terms that "will benefit partners and customers globally."
New licensing terms would make it easier for Microsoft's enterprise customers to bring Microsoft software to non-Microsoft infrastructure and scale the cost and size of theirs or their customer's Microsoft systems on their own hardware, according to Dezen's post. But Microsoft wants to be clear about something: Its Services Provider Licensing Agreement (SPLA) was meant for customers that are offering hosting "from their own data centers," not buying Microsoft licenses to "host on others' data centers." To "strengthen the hoster ecosystem," Dezen writes, Microsoft will remove the ability to outsource to Alibaba, Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft's Azure cloud, or anybody using those companies as part of their hosting. Amazon and Google have weighed in, and they do not believe Microsoft is showing its newer, less anti-competitive side. "Microsoft is now doubling down on the same harmful practices by implementing even more restrictions in an unfair attempt to limit the competition it faces -- rather than listening to its customers and restoring fair software licensing in the cloud for everyone," an Amazon spokesperson told Reuters.
New licensing terms would make it easier for Microsoft's enterprise customers to bring Microsoft software to non-Microsoft infrastructure and scale the cost and size of theirs or their customer's Microsoft systems on their own hardware, according to Dezen's post. But Microsoft wants to be clear about something: Its Services Provider Licensing Agreement (SPLA) was meant for customers that are offering hosting "from their own data centers," not buying Microsoft licenses to "host on others' data centers." To "strengthen the hoster ecosystem," Dezen writes, Microsoft will remove the ability to outsource to Alibaba, Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft's Azure cloud, or anybody using those companies as part of their hosting. Amazon and Google have weighed in, and they do not believe Microsoft is showing its newer, less anti-competitive side. "Microsoft is now doubling down on the same harmful practices by implementing even more restrictions in an unfair attempt to limit the competition it faces -- rather than listening to its customers and restoring fair software licensing in the cloud for everyone," an Amazon spokesperson told Reuters.
Can I run Firebase on Azure? (Score:4, Interesting)
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The keyword here is monopoly. The reason MS was found guilty in monopoly is because it used its Windows monopoly to promote browser. MS Office has near monopoly in productivity suite and it is using that to suppress competing cloud infrastructure providers. Which Amazon or Google software can fall under monopoly that is not available outside of their respective ecosystem?
Re: Can I run Firebase on Azure? (Score:3, Informative)
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That is an invalid oversimplification. MS is under scrutiny for their OS (a product) here, while Google and Amazon are under scrutiny for services. Hence apples and oranges.
Also this is not a case where pointing to somebody else legitimizes your own misbehavior...
Re: Can I run Firebase on Azure? (Score:1)
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MS is under scrutiny _at_ _this_ _time_....
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First, Microsoft has a "monopoly" on Windows like McDonald's has a "monopoly" on the Big Mac. If you mean an OS monopoly, that is demonstrably and provably false as well. Similarly, Office is in no way the only productivity software available or even the only large one.
I didn't know Olive Garden sold Big Macs. Thanks for informing me.
It's extremely hard to find a system without the Microsoft tax added on unlike a burger that I can purchases anywhere. The fact is that Microsoft has such a control, that is has been able to manipulate the market to it's favour for over 30 years now. So no there in no comparison to be made between a BigMac and Windows or Microsoft and McDonald's.
P.S. I can recreate a BigMac call it LittleBurger and sell it. I can't do that with Windows.
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First, Microsoft has a "monopoly" on Windows like McDonald's has a "monopoly" on the Big Mac. If you mean an OS monopoly, that is demonstrably and provably false as well.
Yes it does appear to be the latter but it's been a long time since anybody needed Windows for personal computing, the reason it remains so dominant in the desktop/laptop space is really just because of a lack of compelling alternatives. Linux has been trivial to install (or even try without installing) for well over a decade now and there are hundreds of distributions of it to choose from and the only "problem" is that the overwhelming majority of people see no reason to install it.
Similarly, Office is in no way the only productivity software available or even the only large one.
People routinely complai
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Most people are not aware that linux exists, most linux based devices are embedded ones where the linux branding is not shoved in your face whenever you use the device.
Most users do not install an os, they use whatever comes with the hardware. Hardware that comes with linux in a non hidden embedded form is not so prevalent, and you need to actually go out of your way to find it.
If devices running linux were widely advertised and sold, more people would use it. Most users don't actually care what software th
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Businesses are locked in for sure, end users to a lesser extent. Neither are generally aware that Linux even exists as it's not really marketed at such users.
Smartphones didn't replace an existing incumbent player, they created a new market that didn't previously exist.
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Businesses are locked in for sure, end users to a lesser extent. Neither are generally aware that Linux even exists as it's not really marketed at such users.
How are they locked in? MS Office isn't even compatible between versions which is why so many businesses have successfully transitioned to other offerings like Google's online office suite or even tools like LibreOffice. The big businesses have IT departments that manage this (though you may be right that they are clueless) but the reality of Linux on the desktop isn't "marketing" it's just a lack of compelling innovation, you're not going to disrupt the incumbent without it.
Smartphones didn't replace an existing incumbent player, they created a new market that didn't previously exist.
Nobody uses dumbphones anymore a
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Very few businesses have transitioned to google or libreoffice, those that have are a rounding error.
Yes there are compatibility problems between msoffice versions, but those get ignored... A completely broken document from one version of msoffice to the next is just one of many bugs that people regularly work around, whereas a minor formatting error in libreoffice is a showstopper and excuse not to use libreoffice at all.
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Very few businesses have transitioned to google or libreoffice, those that have are a rounding error.
But again the reason is because there is no reason to switch, they can switch, there is just no reason they should. Same with Linux on the desktop, Windows has problems and Linux has problems so there's no real compelling reason for the overwhelming majority of people to switch, it's just trading one set of problems for another set of problems with no real benefits.
Yes there are compatibility problems between msoffice versions, but those get ignored... A completely broken document from one version of msoffice to the next is just one of many bugs that people regularly work around, whereas a minor formatting error in libreoffice is a showstopper and excuse not to use libreoffice at all.
That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever but demonstrates that this isn't a problem of lock-in it's a problem of lack of a compelling alternati
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The court and actual experts disagree with you.
Re:Can I run Firebase on Azure? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think Amazon and Google would have a better chance of opposing this if Microsoft didn't also exclude Azure from running third party licensing.
An MS FU to the EU? (Score:2)
This decision doesn't read any other way
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Nothingburger (Score:2)
Microsoft is not preventing your from running soft (Score:5, Informative)
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That's like saying that outsourcing is all or nothing. There is no practical difference between a rented dedicated server and a hosted VM. That's just renting hardware at less than 100%.
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We’ll introduce a new Flexible Virtualization benefit for customers that will greatly expand customer choice when outsourcing. Under this benefit, customers with Software Assurance or subscription licenses will be able to use their own licensed software to build and/or install solutions and run them on any cloud provider’s [1] infrastructure—dedicated or shared. This will give customers more flexibility to run their software on multitenant clouds. This benefit will be available beginning October 1.
[1] Note that these changes exclude what we term Listed Providers: Alibaba, Amazon Web Services, Google, and Microsoft. Customers that want to use a Listed Provider for outsourcing can acquire licenses directly from the Listed Provider.
The listed provider thing is nothing new. They have always treated them (including themselves) differently than from other cloud providers.
Since you can't own a server at AWS or GCP they have blacklisted those providers.
You actually can. Both can provide dedicated hosts. It's expensive but the only way to run Windows 10 for VDI with BYOL.
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And do they own hardware when hosted on MS Azure cloud?
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They are simply saying that AWS and GCP are the service provider and they require the license. Since you can't own a server at AWS or GCP they have blacklisted those providers. You can own/rent a Dedicated Server at say OVH or Rackspace and bring your own licenses to your own infrastructure, but not someone else's. It is pretty simple. Service Providers require a Service Provider license. If your providing your own Services, then you can use your own Service provider license. If your buying services from a third party like a Hosted VM, you are not the service provider of that VM as its not your infrastructure.
This message brought to you by your friendly, neighbourhood Microsoft shill.
Which is why it's bollocks.
Macroeconomic costs vs. gains for licensing? (Score:4, Interesting)
Has anyone ever tried to estimate the costs associated with software licensing restrictions vs. the gains?
I'm assuming there are some kinds of macroeconomic gains (and its not just rent seeking profit) -- like maybe somehow a company like Microsoft does some kind of R&D they wouldn't otherwise that makes their software more efficient for the restricted market or something. One of those economics-sounding reasons.
Sometimes it seems like much of software licensing restrictions really is just a giant cost imposed on everyone that leads to a ton of inefficiencies that end up costing more in macroeconomic terms than it could ever deliver in terms of gains.
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This is not relevant. Imagine I have most of my files on Amazon-S3 and now we want to run Office software on AWS infra to increase the speed. But we can't do it without paying exorbitant license fee (we will pay lower license fee for exact same number of core usage when hosted on Azure). So we will have to cancel AWS S3 file hosting and move that to Azure too. Then we will have to move some other workloads as well because now our files are on Azure and so on. This seems anti-competitive to me.
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Either you didn't read the article or you didn't read it correctly. It says: "Listed Providers include Alibaba, Amazon Web Services, Google, and Microsoft, and any outsourcer using a Listed Provider as part of the applicable outsourcing service. Customers that want to use a Listed Provider for outsourcing can acquire licenses directly from the Listed Provider."
The Listed Provider Azure can provide Office-365 license while AWS/GCP/Alibaba cannot.
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Confusion about SPLA (Score:4, Informative)
Its Services Provider Licensing Agreement (SPLA) was meant for customers that are offering hosting "from their own data centers," not buying Microsoft licenses to "host on others' data centers." To "strengthen the hoster ecosystem," Dezen writes, Microsoft will remove the ability to outsource to Alibaba, Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft's Azure cloud, or anybody using those companies as part of their hosting.
The "customers" in this case are cloud providers, not end user orgs. What they are saying is that you can't sign up for the SPLA program, create a virtual datacenter in one of the big 4 cloud providers public clouds, and then sell your customers licenses under SPLA. Basically if you want to be a cloud provider, you need to be a cloud provider and host your customers on your own infrastructure.
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So this means that Google, AWS, etc. can buy SPLA licenses and provide hosting for their direct customers?
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The changes MS is making that they are excluded from is that MS will now allow BYOL on a wider range of produc