The R2 Penalty

  • Comments posted to this topic are about the item The R2 Penalty

  • Does this not create a new opportunity for some sort of “marketplace” to be setup where businesses can sell their old licenses to others looking for previous editions, and then use that to finance their own upgrade?

    I’m pretty sure I have an old SQL server 2000 standard license laying around if any one is interested 🙂

    (This is just a brain dropping and I do not know what the legal implications are of selling old licenses or even if such a service already exists)

  • :blink: that also goes for the minor changes in the pricing model(s) ...

    if you ever succeed to pull out the needed data from your sqlinstance itself .....

    :sick:

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  • Microsoft already offers a range of licensing agreements.

    For companies who develop s/w that use SQL (Independant S/W Vendors (ISV's) they can sign a license agreement that lets them continue to ship their product with an older release of SQL. And they buy at a much reduced price, & so can make a margin selling SQL.

    Larger companies with enterprise agreements or site licenses already have the ability to "downlevel" their s/w. As long as they have the media somewhere from their previous installs, they can continue to install the older edition.

    For the smaller businesses they can go with the SQL that ships with Small Business Server. Same price, same version.

    So that reduces the discussion to orginisations that only buy their databases &/or s/w as a one off purchases.

    Like every other retailer, eventually prices rise. While you can sometimes buy older inventory it is only from retailers who failed to optimise their warehousing & only while stocks last.

    So that leaves the question of: But what if I don't want all these new features? It opens the door to the age old question, should Microsoft sell little pieces of SQL as a set of optional add-in modules. That way you could buy what you intend to use. But it also creates a nightmare for developers who can't rely on the holistic feature set being there & increases the nightmare of licensing & auditing.

    And if Oracle is anythng to go by, the some of the parts cost way more than it should as a bundle.

    Perhaps a better question is, if I did change my app to take advantage of these newer features could I reduce Operations costs &/or make it perform better &/or could I make better decisions. Thus improving the value of that purchase. (It is my experience that most companies fail to use great features & spend vast sums recreating something equivalent to what is included in the product)

    Don't get me wrong, I dislike price rises. But I do understand that Microsoft is a business, they need to pay their folks to develop the next release. And I am a consumer, if I can find what I need from another business then perhaps I will. Ultimately the laws of supply & demand will dictate price.

    my 2 cents worth.

  • David Lean (2/17/2010)


    So that reduces the discussion to orginisations that only buy their databases &/or s/w as a one off purchases.

    quote]

    which is all companies that want to upgrade and don't have software assurance.

    We have our old SQL2000 and 2005 media but if its an extra instance it would need to be licensed, come May that license would have to be 2008 R2 with backward compatibility.

    For now I will get my license purchase in (we are upgrading all our installs) at SQL 2008 SP1 and pay the lower price as we can live without the new R2 features.

    anything in the future though we will be paying R2 prices, so I may as well get R2, so at least I am able to use the features I am paying for.

    R2 does have extra features so fair enough there is a price increase (25% though!), just feels like being forced to buy a new car when a 1 year old used one would do.

    ---------------------------------------------------------------------

  • Thank you one and all for the warning.

  • ..."because they deal with physical inventory, there don't subtely "....

    do you ever proofread or spellcheck what you write?

  • Steve, you're comparison to physical inventory is off the mark. Software does not exist as a physical item in inventory. One can have an "inventory" of software and maybe keep boxes around to make it feel like a physical item.

    As physical inventory ages, it is desirable to get rid of it by selling it off at a lower price. Software doesn't age. My copy of PFS: Write creates as fine a letter today as it did in 1990. If I don't need or want features in modern software, I don't need to buy it.

    Those who want to stay current on SQL Server do so for various reasons. The cost for doing that increases over time. Like some, I don't begrudge Microsoft for making money.

  • steve.neumann (2/17/2010)


    ..."because they deal with physical inventory, there don't subtely "....

    do you ever proofread or spellcheck what you write?

    <sarcasm>Wow, thanks for the very professional and helpful post. It certainly wouldn't make sense to send a polite note to someone or just note an error.</sarcasm>

  • skjoldtc (2/17/2010)


    Steve, you're comparison to physical inventory is off the mark. Software does not exist as a physical item in inventory. One can have an "inventory" of software and maybe keep boxes around to make it feel like a physical item.

    ...

    Those who want to stay current on SQL Server do so for various reasons. The cost for doing that increases over time. Like some, I don't begrudge Microsoft for making money.

    My point was software is not like a physical product. There's no need to "sell" it to get rid of it.

    I don't begrudge Microsoft making money. What I am pointing out is a penalty for those that don't need the new version. R2 contains mostly BI enhancements. If you need to buy a new license to stand up a CRM server, or other relational product in July, you'll pay more for the license when you don't need, or use, any of the new features.

  • steve.neumann (2/17/2010)


    ..."because they deal with physical inventory, there don't subtely "....

    do you ever proofread or spellcheck what you write?

    I would agree with Steve...every post you have made on this forum on SCC (that shows up in your history) is about someone's grammer or spelling. You even knock the Editor-In-Chief in a post!!!

    Hear's a book you might won't to read: http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0671723650

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  • When you say ....

    "Is this fair? I'm not sure. On one hand, Microsoft is a business, and they certainly have the right to do this. Just as we have the right to move to Oracle, DB2, or some other platform."

    You cannot change your sql server engine as you swap, let's say, cars! You can go from Honda to Toyota, to Ford, to BMW, or whichever because the software in those devices is YOU.

    In the world of software, SQL SERVER is irreplaceble. You can not switch to another sql server engine like you change pants.

    Microsoft takes innapropiate advantage of its customer base, and is the reason behind their "success", when they obligate their customers to keep buying "NEW" versions.

    I'm amazed that every time a security concern is patched by Microsoft, these patches applies to a range of products like Windows 2000 to Windows 7!!

    It is the same code packed in a new box. They add a new stupid functionality and sell it like their a selling a new product!

    SQL SERVER 2008 R2 is no more than that: it is SQL SERVER 2008 plus 3 new functionalites that are important to less than 1% of the customer base and you are locked behind those bars.

    The last time I ever developed a SQL SERVER application was for 2005. I will keep them there. I won't upgrade to "newer" versions.

    My new applications, all of them, are based on MYSQL. It has 1% of the functionality of MS SQL SERVER? YES. But it is more than what I need.

    I won't be enchained by Microsoft again.

    By the way, I alse quitted using .net, which is another dead end.

    Greetings.

    Mauricio Ramirez

  • [font="Arial"] Compared to hardware maintenance, only a handful of companies do software license management. If organizations perform the latter, they can reuse licenses, and perhaps manage the license life cycle in a better fashion in at an enterprise level rather than a business unit level. Regardless, this is where EU's anti-trust suites really helps customers.

    [/font]

  • Does the licensing model change with R2 as well?

    I heard something last week during a webinar on virtualization that indicated SQL 2008 R2 Enterprise processor licensing would require more licenses for additional SQL instances when running in VM's.

    That might be another reason to buy now and hold off on the R2 upgrade if you don't need the features.

  • There are some licensing changes, but you'll have to check to see if they affect you. There are also some edition changes, notably that if you run > 8 CPUs, you need to move to Data Center instead of Enterprise.

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