News

Microsoft Offers Virtual Licensing Options for Vista

If your enterprise customers have been pestering you for virtual licensing options, you can now bring them some good news, at least for Vista.

Microsoft recently announced changes to its virtual licensing strategy that should make it easier for enterprises to license Vista on all types of virtual machines.

Microsoft will now let enterprises license Vista for thin-client workstations or any other version of "diskless PCs" -- if they have Software Assurance.

The company has also created a new licensing option, Windows Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktops (VECD), which will allow for licenses on "virtual machines centralized on server hardware."

"We are working with our partners so they can provide the software to enable diskless PCs and they will likely enable two different scenarios for customers," Scott Woodgate, director of Microsoft Windows Business Group, said in an interview posted on Microsoft's site. "In the first scenario, each employee's hard drive is stored individually on centralized storage hardware. In the second scenario, shared images are used by a group of users. Our licensing enables both of these scenarios so that customers can work with our partners to determine if these are valuable architectures within their desktop environment."

According to Woodgate's statements online, the "diskless PC" option is just an additional option for customers -- no price change is involved. The price of VECD will vary depending on whether customers purchase it for PCs or for virtual machines.

Both of the changes are only available to customers with Software Assurance.

While VECD might be a good fit for some customers, it doesn't look like Microsoft thinks these new options will immediately catch on: "For most businesses, the most cost-effective option for centrally managing their desktop environments continues to be Terminal Services," Woodgate said. "VECD likely has a lower price-performance ratio than Terminal Services -- due to the hardware requirements of virtual machines -- but it does have the benefit of the same application compatibility and isolation boundaries as Windows Vista."

The new options were originally launched last week at the Microsoft Management Summit 2007 in San Diego.

About the Author

Becky Nagel serves as vice president of AI for 1105 Media specializing in developing media, events and training for companies around AI and generative AI technology. She also regularly writes and reports on AI news, and is the founding editor of PureAI.com. She's the author of "ChatGPT Prompt 101 Guide for Business Users" and other popular AI resources with a real-world business perspective. She regularly speaks, writes and develops content around AI, generative AI and other business tech. She has a background in Web technology and B2B enterprise technology journalism.

Featured

  • Microsoft Appoints Althoff as New CEO for Commercial Business

    Microsoft CEO and chairman Satya Nadella on Wednesday announced the promotion of Judson Althoff to CEO of the company's commercial business, presenting the move as a response to the dramatic industrywide shifts caused by AI.

  • Broadcom Revamps VMware Partner Program Again

    Broadcom recently announced a significant update regarding its VMware Cloud Service Provider (VCSP) program, coinciding with the release of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0, a key component in Broadcom’s private cloud strategy.

  • Closeup of the new Copilot keyboard key

    Microsoft Updates Copilot To Add Context-Sensitive Agents to Teams, SharePoint

    Microsoft has rolled out a new public preview for collaborative "always on" agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot, bringing enhanced, context-aware tools into Teams channels, meetings, SharePoint sites, Planner workstreams and Viva Engage communities.

  • Windows 365 Cloud Apps Now Available for Public Preview

    Microsoft announced this week that Windows 365 Cloud Apps are now available for public preview. This aims to allow IT administrators to stream individual Windows applications from the cloud, removing the need to assign Cloud PCs to every user.