Inventive Software
26th October 2007, 17:05
The UK computer agency Becta is advising schools not to sign licensing agreements with Microsoft because of alleged anti-competitive practices.
The government agency has complained to the Office of Fair Trading.
It says talks with Microsoft have not resolved "fundamental concerns" about academic licensing and about Office 2007 and the Vista operating system.
Microsoft says it wants as many people as possible to benefit from its technology at the best possible price.
Becta's advice to schools considering moving to Microsoft's School Agreement subscription licensing model is that they should not do so.
It reminds schools they are legally obliged to have licensed software, but suggests they use instead what is known as "perpetual licensing".
This gives the permanent right to use the software and requires no ongoing payments beyond the purchase price.
The advantage to schools in using a subscription service such as Microsoft's is that smaller, annual payments are involved rather than a larger one-off cost.
But a spokesman for Becta said the problem was that Microsoft required schools to have licences for every PC in a school that might use its software, whether they were actually doing so or running something else.
Full article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7063716.stm
The last part in bold is key. How can companies get away with software licenses that have something like that in them?!
The government agency has complained to the Office of Fair Trading.
It says talks with Microsoft have not resolved "fundamental concerns" about academic licensing and about Office 2007 and the Vista operating system.
Microsoft says it wants as many people as possible to benefit from its technology at the best possible price.
Becta's advice to schools considering moving to Microsoft's School Agreement subscription licensing model is that they should not do so.
It reminds schools they are legally obliged to have licensed software, but suggests they use instead what is known as "perpetual licensing".
This gives the permanent right to use the software and requires no ongoing payments beyond the purchase price.
The advantage to schools in using a subscription service such as Microsoft's is that smaller, annual payments are involved rather than a larger one-off cost.
But a spokesman for Becta said the problem was that Microsoft required schools to have licences for every PC in a school that might use its software, whether they were actually doing so or running something else.
Full article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7063716.stm
The last part in bold is key. How can companies get away with software licenses that have something like that in them?!