Re: [Fwd: Samba beats NT at its own game...]

["Robert G. Brown" <bob@xxxxxxx>]

>> > ----- Original Message -----
>> > From: Bruce Smith <bruce@armintl.com>
>> > To: <klug@klug.armintl.com>
>> > Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 1999 8:11 AM
>> > Subject: [Fwd: Samba beats NT at its own game...]
>> > | http://www.zdnet.com/sr/stories/issue/0,4537,396321,00.html
>> >
>>
>On Wed, 31 Mar 1999, Christopher Pruden wrote:
>
>> I would just like to add to this, hehe... I love this part... Samba doesn't
>> have any limit on the number of connections(at least, not a licensing limit,
>> I'm sure there is a practical limit) that you can have to your system at
>> once, either, unlike  NT.  I just love that part.. NT Workstation only
>> allows, what... 5 connections?  That's pathetic.  It might be enough for
>> most people, but it's ridiculous that you should have to pay more for having
>> more people connect to YOUR machine.  It's like if Apache were to cost
>> more(read anything) for allowing more than some number of HTTP
>> connection...  Heheh...  Just my opinion.
>> Chris
>>  
>Chris-
>	Yes, Microsoft does give you a "compilementary" 10 user license
>with server.  However, ever person who connects after that needs a license
>(which I believe cost $100).  Also, if you have a server running office
>(word, excel, etc), each client that uses these apps from the server also
>has to have a license.  This means that for each client computer you could
>be paying for 5 or more licenses.  A computer could spend thousands in
>dollars in just licenses, which does not include the huge amounts of money
>spent for the actual software.  Pretty messed up, eh?
>
>-Ben S.
>
>p.s.-if im wrong on any of this correct me, but this is how it was
>explained to me :]
>
Um....I think you might have it a bit wrong, but don't feel bad. MS pricing 
plans for this stuff are complicated and change often, and you may actually
be right in some markets, or through some OEMs or dealers or -- ???

If I was a suspicious person, I might even think that some people at M$ don't 
want people to understand the system, so that maybe a mistake or two might 
get made and someone might buy a few too many licences for some of their pro-
ducts, and if the mistake is not found by the customer, that's what they
wanted, right? I guess it's a good thing I'm not a suspicious person, or a 
bit cynical about the behavior of large corporations that have chosen to 
price software products in interesting ways. Of course, the Redmond crew is
hardly the first bunch to engage in entertainment of this sort, the reader
may note that my lack of suspicion predates the tenure of Mr. Reagan at
1600 Pennsy Avenue.

NT server comes in several flavors; the seasoning is the number of licences.
I don't think you need client-side licensing (except for the clients them-
selves), and if you buy it all at once, you may well qualify for one or
more discount plans. From what I've seen, $100 is a good approximation for
the incremental cost of 1 licence, before applying ceratin discounts.

                                                           Regards,
                                                            ---> RGB <---,
who sacrifices small, helpless animals so as to fend
off suspicion and better understand the arcane pricing
policies discussed above.