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Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

If Microsoft wants SMBs to use Enterprise then make the Enterprise edition more easily available to SMBs, don't try to force them to move to it by making petty little changes to make their life more difficult.

I can go on the Google Apps website right now and buy myself seats with a few clicks and a few minutes. If I want to buy Windows Enterprise licenses it will take weeks, cost an unclear amount (at the onset), and I'll have to talk/negotiate with pointless sales drones.

I worked for a startup, under 20 machines, I tried to buy then Windows 7 Enterprise. Microsoft's partners were super unhelpful, disinterested in a small account, refused to provide clear pricing, and I was getting upsold even before we got the basics squared away ("I'll just add on 20 CALs, a Windows Server license, and let's talk exchange!"). Ultimately we just gave up, and used Windows 7 Home(!) for three years.

People want to give Microsoft money, but Microsoft is intent on making the entire thing as painful as possible and their licensing as obtuse as possible. Office 365 Business gets a lot of shit, but it is a dream come true for startups, you pay one cost, and one user gets their Office license key, email, and some cloud storage taken care of.

Where is the Windows version of Office 365? Why can't I just pay a per user fee and get one Windows Enterprise key, the CAL, and Azure-based AD?

Time is money, and Microsoft likes to waste a lot of time. I'd prefer to spend a few dollars more a year and have a simple streamline process of licensing, than spend weeks being jerked around just to maybe get a few bucks off of a fake price anyway.

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I lived through the exact same disaster. I spent HOURS on the phone trying to acquire a license for Windows 7 Enterprise, I needed it for Hyper-V. Microsoft's main number, dead-end IVR system. Tried the Microsoft Store, they routed me to the dead-end IVR system. 50 or so minutes after my initial attempt I got some person that could barely speak English from India routing me to a voicemail, a couple of times Microsoft's phone system plain hung up on me after having me on hold for 20+ minutes.

Eventually I got some person at a Microsoft Store felt bad about the whole thing and took 2 days to get a number for a rep a CDW who could get me the price. That rep didn't have the price, but took my information after a 15 minute call and promised to get it to me. When she did days later, she couldn't give me a final price because she forgot I needed a user CAL and a remote access CAL. When I went to make the final purchase, she said oh, actually we can't do it because Microsoft won't sell the Windows 7 license anymore only Windows 10.

The whole process made me feel like I was losing my mind.

Unfortunately, that is common with many large companies, including Microsoft. I've practically begged them to take my money but sometimes nobody seems to know how to do it.

In the past I've heard that if you need an XP license and Microsoft won't sell one, installed a pirated version of XP and then let it do it's genuine windows check, which will fail. Right after it fails, you are given a way to actually pay for a license. I'm guessing this no longer works, but it did for a while.

And even they have not supporting Windows XP now. I have used Windows 7, 8 and Windows 10. But still loves XP.

Nobody knows what Microsoft wants to do, they have Acquired Nokia but nothing goes well.

> I spent HOURS on the phone trying to acquire a license for Windows 7 Enterprise, I needed it for Hyper-V.

I'm not sure why you're trying to do that.

Windows 7 cannot run Hyper-V. You can install the Hyper-V Manager on Windows 7, but that only requires Pro or Ultimate. [1]

Client Hyper-V was only added in Windows 8, and you only need Pro. [2]

[1] https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/f0f1dc3d-9...

[2] https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/b8/2011/09/07/bringing-hype...

Windows 7 was the VM, not the host.

> Windows 7 was the VM, not the host.

Oh. Then I agree with you that Microsoft screwed up the licensing -- but it's a different screw-up.

Windows 7 Ultimate is just like Windows 7 Enterprise, except for the virtualization rights. With Enterprise, each license allows 4 concurrent VMs. With Ultimate, you only get one.

The original idea of Ultimate was to be a consumer version of Enterprise. You didn't have to go through a salesman. You could just buy Ultimate on Newegg or Amazon.

However, Microsoft crippled Ultimate by putting in the 1-VM restriction. Considering how much Ultimate cost, this was a really cheap move on Microsoft's part.

"I lived through the exact same disaster."

Might it be easier to just get an OS-level subscription to MSDN ? I got one of those a few years ago for rsync.net and it was quick and easy to purchase ... and then we had everything.

Certainly more expensive to get MSDN than a single OS license, but it's not that expensive ...

MSDN is not licensed for production, I assume you mean you're using it just for development and testing.

MS Partner on the other hand is licensed for internal-only production use.

"MSDN is not licensed for production, I assume you mean you're using it just for development and testing."

Oh, right.

Yes, we just used it to test clients against rsync.net.

Recommended (MSDN, that is), if you're in that situation...

Reminds of the time when I wanted to get a license for a piece of software and they only offered training courses for teams coupled with a software license. I chalked it off as being outside their customer target group.

Which software was that? Sounds very "enterprise".

It wasn't enterprise, but the company is nice to the community otherwise, so I don't want to name them here. They just didn't seem to have single-developer target as part of their sales process.

You are supposed to use downgrade rights, which every VL agreement have.

"The whole process made me feel like I was losing my mind."

And perhaps Microsoft shareholders are beginning to feel as if they might be losing their capital soonish... This sounds like The End.

A tad hyperbolic, don't you think?

Not necessarily, it's entirely possible for a company to severely damage itself by creating too much friction in the sales process.

This is the sort of thing that helped kill Sun, although the circumstances were sufficiently different it wouldn't play out in the same way: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11601146 (especially when much of the competition is entirely free, e.g. AWS doesn't run on Windows).

Same thing with Xerox not all that long ago, they had a near death experience because the salesmen got so much pointless process larded into what they had to do to do their jobs. Note also one of the newer HP CEOs who upon getting his job said that one of his top priorities was streamlining the sales process.

Microsoft had a train wreck with Windows 8. They're on track for another train wreck with Windows 10 that they seem to be actively compounding at every turn by adopting a customer-hostile strategy. They're supposedly shifting towards more cloud- and device-based models as a corporate strategy, but being comprehensively out-competed in both markets on almost all counts by other big tech firms. And their share price has been pretty flaky since it became clear how Windows 10 was actually going to work.

At some point, the hyperbole starts looking like a plausible assessment.

Adding my voice to the chorus.

The Microsoft Windows ecosystem is a god send for those wanting to enforce single sign on, roaming profiles and group policy to control things deploy Chrome, 7-Zip or all manner of apps straight to the desktop or lock down access for say the demo room machines but give full access to engineering notebooks and enforce things like password policy, mapped network drives, etc.

It honestly just works and is fantastic in practise for companies wanting to enforce good IT policies with 10+ employees (in comparison try doing the above with Mac OS X + Mac OS X Server - like pulling teeth).

However Microsoft's licensing is absolutely fracking byzantine.

* I first need a server license - is it per socket or per core?

* Then I need my desktop licenses - do I need Pro or Enterprise? Or heck, maybe Ultimate only has the regional language options I need?

* Then I apparently need a fracking Client Access License for not only Windows Server to Windows Desktop services but for god damn DNS and DHCP services too! Like seriously MS - are you kidding me? So every iOS or Android device which pops up on our Windows DHCP/DNS needs a CAL apparently.

Now the whole cluster fudge above would be barely tolerable for any well funded startup or company IF Microsoft made buying these licenses easy.

If the above nightmare sounds bad however, just try getting licensed for it all and ensuring you're compliant.

It's seriously, a real damn shame because Microsoft Windows Server + Windows desktop is fantastic. When put together it really does work beautifully. It's just such a shame that MS seems to shoot itself in the foot consistently when it comes to figuring out their licensing.

> So every iOS or Android device which pops up on our Windows DHCP/DNS needs a CAL

Only if you have Device CALs. If you are using User CALs then each user is licensed for as many devices as they/you want.

We have good sales company (in the UK) with a really great sales REP. We moved with him when he changed companies a couple of years back. We call him up, and we have an open license the next day. That said there are some pretty aweful MS partners.

> When put together it really does work beautifully.

Except for the forced reboots because their OS still can't completely update itself at run time.

Neither can Linux or OS X.

Linux goes a long way towards updating while running. In fact, in my seven years of administering Linux – and my distro updates once a week – I never had to reboot to continue an update. Every update - during and after - I could continue using my system exactly as I was using it before.

Enterprise Linux also has the feature of updating the kernel on-the-fly. The infrastructure for it has been open-source, and anyone could build a similar service for themselves if they wanted.

I'm pretty sure I've updated the kernel on the fly when trying to update the kernel on Digital Ocean-- the stock kernel loads (let's call it the bootstrap kernel) and then it eventually calls some code that replaces the running kernel with a newer more modern version. I've forgotten the details, as it sounded kludgy, but I'm pretty use like anything else Linux, a reboot isn't always required.

In fact, with Nano server, Microsoft is trying to go that direction too -- the less you have running, the easier to avoid reboots.

But the real solution is trying to be reboot-tolerant by having a slight bit of redundancy, I would think. Uptime matters more for pet/snowflake servers than for cattle....

> I'm pretty sure I've updated the kernel on the fly when trying to update the kernel on Digital Ocean

What you go on to describe sounds a lot like kexec, and a kexec is the same thing as a reboot for everything on a computer except the hardware. The new kernel during a kexec starts with a freshly-booted state.

What I meant was – and perhaps I wasn't clear enough – updating the kernel in-memory, while it runs so that even your userspace apps notice nothing - except perhaps a few fractions of seconds of time slipping by - and continue running while the kernel they're running on top of is patched with new code.

This has been possible for a while on Linux. It began with, IIRC, Ksplice as a college-project, then a startup, then bought-out by Oracle for Oracle Linux, then independent efforts at similar implementations by both Red Hat and Suse, which eventually got merged together and mainlined into Linus's tree.

For Linux it only really needs to reboot for kernel updates. If you don't update your kernel often, then you could do updates every day and not have to reboot at all.

At home I run Arch Linux, and I do updates almost every day. Usually my uptime can easily be measured in weeks.

At work I have Windows 7 on my laptop. I have to restart my laptop twice a week at a minimum, because every tiny fucking update requires a restart. And if I don't then it nags like a little bitch every 2-4 hours and breaks my concentration. And if you take too long then it forces the update and your work is lost. I hate having to close all my apps every 2 days and wait for ages while it restarts. From a user's perspective, Windows is the shittiest desktop experience available in a corporate environment.

</rant>

Windows 7 is almost 7 years old though. Just the other day I noticed that my Windows 10 machine updated its video driver without having to restart. Things have definitely improved since Windows 7.

Windows 7 actually has that ability, too! I even think that change came with the new graphics driver model (WDDM) in vista.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Display_Driver_Model...

Linux does support livepatching: https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux....

I solved that by turning updates of. Not secure, technically, but neither is high blood pressure.

>in comparison try doing the above with Mac OS X + Mac OS X Server - like pulling teeth

Because OS X Server is complete crap. As is ARD. Not even Apple uses OS X Server to manage their devices. I believe they use JAMF's Casper.

The ironic thing is that when Microsoft launched Windows NT they successfully disrupted Novell's Netware business largely by just being easier to purchase. Back then Netware was a superior product in most ways, but the only way to get it was to buy through an authorized local reseller. Dealing with those shops was a huge hassle and expense. Whereas anyone with a credit card could call up a catalog retailer and order as many different NT licenses as they wanted.

> Where is the Windows version of Office 365? Why can't I just pay a per user fee and get one Windows Enterprise key, the CAL, and Azure-based AD?

It used to be an optional tier of Windows Intune (now known as Microsoft Intune), which they have since killed (stupid decision, IMO). However, you can just directly join a Windows 10 (Pro?) system to Azure AD, Enterprise is only necessary for things like DirectRoute, you may not be able to block the Windows Store entirely but you can restrict people from using non-whitelisted applications IIRC.

If you want to manage software updates, deploy applications, Microsoft Intune is still a great option (even includes endpoint protection for PC's) at $6/usr/mo. It's just too bad they got rid of the $10/usr/mo tier that had the Windows Enterprise license.

It is too bad about Intune. I think the Azure AD with joining is only hybrid, unless I've missed something, which means you still need a local AD resource. Reminds me of Azure-compatible Storage Spaces Dorect -- an amazing idea until they told me I would need four identically configured servers and I realised it would be a waste of time when I only need one server and less redundancy to start. Wish they could figure out a way to provide AD entirely remotely, for those willing to require the Internet always working 24/7 to locate and manage devices on their own network... Though maybe something like bonjour could also replace those functions of AD.

As of Windows 10 you can join directly to Azure AD without any on prem AD implementation.

Sweet. News to me, thanks. Will definitely try this. :)

This kind of reminds me about how QuarkXPress abused their market dominance for so long and generated a lot of resentment in the community. When a decent alternative came along in Adobe InDesign, people jumped ship in droves[1].

[1] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/quarkx...

No joke, it's like that in no small part because corporate types love it that way regardless of business size. If it's easy to buy licenses they'll find a way to go through a VAR anyway. I've seen a consultancy engaged to middle-man the Google Apps purchase and configuration and ultimately the only value they provided were a couple trainings and some initial configuration any idiot with a few minutes and the ability to read could do.

The reality is that for your corporate/enterprise-fully-entrenched-fiefdom-building management person easily buying things or having someone read documentation and configure something is just not compatible with how they operate. They need net 30/60/90, sales drone wine, dine & golf, "is this in the Gartner Magic Quadrant?", a drawn out high-touch sales engagement and consultants they can blame.

Risk averse is the name of the game and it doesn't matter if it makes the business too slow to compete because a middle manager will never be held directly accountable for doing exactly what every other politics-first middle manager is doing. You want to sell to enterprises? Get in with the developers but be prepared to provide all of the above to the people actually making the purchasing decisions.

Why do this remind me of how big media had to dragged kicking and screaming into the streaming age?

Perhaps because it's an obviously worse system that would be replaced if only the incumbents weren't protecting it.

I'm sure any individual middle manager would give you a very reasonable explanation for any of these behaviors. If you're operating in a political environment and you don't play the game you're going to end up the sucker sooner or later. How do you fix the problem when you need to be part of it to have any leverage to fix it? The only thing you have power to do in that situation is behave ethically or unethically (depending on who's definition of unethical you're using of course).

I'd like to think that startups that grow enormously will prove over time that slow enterprise-y corporations are at a huge disadvantage and that will slowly make it's way into business schools. But part of the reason risk averse behavior takes hold is because the stakes get higher as you get larger. Today's spectacularly successful startups are tomorrow's enterprises unless they make a deliberate effort not to be.

> I worked for a startup, under 20 machines, I tried to buy then Windows 7 Enterprise. Microsoft's partners were super unhelpful, disinterested in a small account, refused to provide clear pricing, and I was getting upsold even before we got the basics squared away ("I'll just add on 20 CALs, a Windows Server license, and let's talk exchange!"). Ultimately we just gave up, and used Windows 7 Home(!) for three years.

You were likely talking to the wrong people. You need to go through bizspark[1] if you're a startup and you'll end up with a super-helpful dedicated Microsoft representative and lots of free stuff. It's been never anything but super in my experience to work with Microsoft as a startup.

[1] https://www.microsoft.com/bizspark

If those 'wrong' people are Microsoft employees, they should have directed him to the right people.

If they didn't, then it is absolutely Microsoft's fault.

Microsoft sales are generally handled through small VARs (value-added resellers) which are hyper-local and send salespeople and technicians to drive around to local businesses. These VARs in turn buy from large distributors with more elite Microsoft partner status like Ingram Micro. Players at every level participate in some kind of Certified Partner Program and must be certified by the next level up the chain as conforming to requirements (has a physical office, X in revenue, N people on staff with Y certification, etc).

It's the same with Cisco, and really a lot of stuff in the enterprise space.

Plebes don't get to talk to Microsoft employees.

EDIT: I will add that I have worked for a few such resellers of various enterprisey tech companies. Your partner account buys you a hotline to competent vendor support engineers. They aren't reading scripts, take you at your word for the troubleshooting steps you've already tried, are happy to work a problem systematically with you, and will also readily admit that a product is defective and grant an RMA or even make a bug report, collect diagnostic logs from you, and tell you when a fix is slated for release. It's amazing.

So they should have directed him to a competent VAR then. They don't appear to have done that! The ball is most certainly still in Microsoft's court.

Microsoft is a huge organization with tens of thousands of employees. We have no idea what was communicated between this commenter and the sales person. At some point you have to kind of step back and realize that you're responsible for your outcomes and not blame everything bad that happens to you on others. Searching Google with "startup microsoft" or "startup pricing microsoft" would have been enough effort to figure this out.

No. That's not how sales organizations for competent companies work.

IBM, in the mainframe era, was very good at this. It was IBM policy that if you called anyone within IBM sales with a problem, it was the IBM employee's job to get you to the right people. All IBM salespeople had a little printed pocket book of phone numbers within IBM, a directory of contacts for various types of problems.

Man, I can't upvote this enough. Say what you will about the IBM of old or new, when you called you didn't have to put up with this runaround of putting the onus on the potential customer. "Hi, IBM, I'd like to give you money." "Just a moment, sir, and the next person you speak with will be the one that can help you."

"Hi, Microsoft, I'd like to give you money but fuck me if I can figure out which SKU or how much." "You did it wrong, sir. You should have called this other number. Or you should have Googled it. But the last thing you should have done is called me, have a nice day. <click>"

I ran into this almost ten years ago trying to price the various SKUs we needed for Visual Studio. It was appallingly ridiculous how much time I spent on that, in contrast to just going to a web page, comparing features, click a few radio buttons, click "Buy", sorted. It was the last place I've worked since that I've had to beg Microsoft to take my money. Now they just plain don't get my money.

Signed, A very disappointed ex-MSFT employee and ex-shareholder

IBM is still like that. I called with an issue on an old iSeries machine[1] and mentioned that I might want to purchase a new one[2]. I got no less that 3 calls within 4 hours asking me about my purchasing needs and giving me exact prices and plans. They would be fine with taking my money.

1) I guess if the switch its connected to gets reset, the older version of the OS cannot reconnect automatically.

2) accounting software will make you buy strange things

I remember a friend of mine's company bought a $78k storage server around 1998, and one of the drives failed 4 months in, he called just to replace the drive and it took a call from the upstream vendor to get them to not try to sell them another >$70k storage server.

For the record, that hasn't been my experience with IBM; I used to get a pretty bad runaround, but perhaps that's changed - I stopped using their products as a result.

I took "mainframe era" to be roughly the 50s through 70s or 80s. Are you talking about the same time period?

No, I guess I'm talking about the post-mainframe era; perhaps the PC era.

The fact that you have to go to Google to search to find Microsoft pricing, and have to already have the knowledge that they have special "startup" pricing is a failure on Microsoft's part.

I still can't find accurate Microsoft pricing with my Google-fu. It's ludicrous!

You know given the title and the bait it presents to a particular kind of people I should have known better than share with people a positive thing about Microsoft and to suggest they think for themselves.

Don't be like that. From the other commenters' perspective, you didn't share a positive thing about MS, you made a negative comment about them.

Don't let confirmation bias and an MS persecution complex make you put up a wall to legitimate concerns.

You shared your positive experience about dealing with Microsoft, but you also downplayed the OP's experience. Even though he went through the process he attempted in some detail, you told him he was responsible for the poor customer service he got from Microsoft.

That's why you aren't getting favourable comments.

You're not getting downvoted because you're saying a positive thing about Microsoft, for the simple reason that the thing you're saying about Microsoft isn't positive.

If you like MSFT so much, I have some spyware you can remove on my sister's laptop. only took me 4 hrs last time.

When my grandmother's computer finally died a couple years ago, I bought her a chromebook to replace it... mom liked it so much I gave her one... now about half of my family that I regularly talk to uses them.

Do you understand how that sounds?

"We failed to sell you something you wanted, and it's your fault."

Besides, BizSpark is solely for startups, not for established SMBs, who would quite reasonably expect to be able to sign up for Enterprise by searching for "Enterprise".

Is this too obvious, perhaps?

Is it really your assumption that thread parent neglected even to google this topic of such great import to business success? That seems neither likely nor charitable.

It's definitely more palatable than blindly bringing out the "M$" pitchforks but I guess if you were looking for something on HN to get your daily anger fix I guess feel free to use this as your opportunity.

Wow!

It's irrelevant if Microsoft are a huge organization with tens of thousands of employees. Sales aren't made via excuses.

Putting the responsibility on the customer to find the right set of keywords - in Google no less! - to purchase copies of enterprise software is bizarre.

Hahaha, "we only sell to Bing users!" Now that's a strategy tax!

If he's able to reach "the wrong people", that still represents a failure on Microsoft's part.

> You need to go through bizspark

Shouldn't Microsoft make that clear then? If I wanted Windows 10 Enterprise for a business, I'd search for "windows 10 enterprise", follow the link to "Windows 10 Enterprise for your enterprise business - Microsoft"[1], and go to the "Buy>How to buy"[2] page. There is zero mention of BizSpark in that process as far as I can see.

It's also non-obvious from your link that BizSpark includes Windows 10 Enterprise. I had to download the "Products by benefits level" Excel sheet to be sure, and it appears to be limited to five people regardless.

I understand that Microsoft's enterprise licensing typically involves going through a reseller, but Microsoft certainly could be doing a better job pointing people (esp. small businesses) in the right direction. Even if I go through to "Contact a Windows Solution Provider"[3], it defaults to searching for UK and an 8km radius (accurate enough), sort by "Most relevant". Top 5 results:

* German-language result

* Scandinavian/Nordic-language result (doesn't look like Swedish, Danish, or Norwegian to me. Possibly Finnish?)

* English-language result, but located in the Netherlands

* French-language result

* Italian-language result

Maybe these companies can help me, or maybe they are the "wrong people" to whom you refer. Following what I would see as the obvious path to try and purchase Windows 10 Enterprise, I'd have no idea how to tell the difference.

[1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/WindowsForBusiness/windows-f... [2] https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/WindowsForBusiness/buy [3] https://pinpoint.microsoft.com/en-GB/search?type=companies&k...

bizspark is only for up to 7 people. I mean you could actually create a single account and use the same key for multiple machines but if it comes to office your limited to 2 keys per user. but you could install every key on up to 2 machines but licensing forbids to use both installations at once.

Does Microsoft still unleash the BSA on small businesses that are out of compliance?

I'm pretty sure no business can be in compliance since different parts of microsoft will give you a different story about what needs to be licensed.

Does the pope shit in the woods?

The fact that it's apparently not obvious who to talk to seems to be a problem for Microsoft to solve if they care about the "little guys" (maybe they don't? I'm not sure)

I worked for a startup a while back and we tried to get quotes on running Microsoft SQL server. The sales rep could not comprehend that we were a web company. They continued to try to ask us about how we would be using it to manage our in-house inventory. Even after explaining, "no we're a web company, like myspace", the rep still didn't get it. We used MySQL.

VARs don't even know how SQL Server licensing works. It's not hard when you take the time to read about it but it's convoluted and no one should have to waste their time doing it. Basically it comes down to this:

if ($number_of_clients * $client_license) > ($number_of_processors * $processor_license) buy per-proc, else buy client licenses.

Per-processor licensing is somewhere in the neighborhood of 30K (per CPU). Standby servers and processors aren't counted toward that total. Clients are any machines or users that directly or indirectly (like via a web app) use the database. That last point is important because sales reps at vendors who's software requires SQL Server will sometimes be ignorant of it or will lie and when you get audited you're the one left holding the bill.

What's the rationale for not selling windows enterprise licenses on amazon? What's so special that it requires an official reseller?

If Windows Enterprise Licenses were on Amazon then Microsoft could not maximize how much money they make on Windows Enterprise Licenses. They rely on the information asymmetry to charge you as much as they think they can get out of you.

> People want to give Microsoft money, but Microsoft is intent on making the entire thing as painful as possible and their licensing as obtuse as possible.

This.

I don't know if this is still the case, but a few years ago I bought an MSDN subscription, and it took weeks. I could never figure out why they made it so difficult, nor why they forced me to go through partners. Just add a subscribe button on your own website, let me pay and be done with it. How you handle distribution is not my business (and I reckon distribution is not an issue anymore, since I think nobody chooses to have CDs delivered instead of downloading what they're interested in).

Again, this was a few years ago. I hope by now they have fixed this process, because it was completely broken.

Similar story... But not with a human sales person. Went to order github enterprise for our company. Went to Microsoft Asure as one of GHE's recommended hosting partners. The interface was extremely complicated and cloudy. Costs about $200/month for what seems to be a $40-80 VPS anywhere else. Performance is not that great, too. Found out a month later that bitbucket would fit our use case hosted for $10/month. Gitlab would fit our use case hosted for free. Management had insisted on GHE "for consistency".

If you are small and want enterprise licensing you can sign up your company as a reseller through Ingram Micro and buy it through distribution faster than a reseller will quote you.

I think Windows Intune also comes with Enterprise licensing as well, but I'm not certain.

They don't want you any more.

When you're ready to spend big bucks on Azure, please let them know.

I'm pretty happy spending small bucks on Azure... though, I'm less inclined to be stuck with windows, there are aspects I do prefer...

You can get Win10 Enterprise with Software Assurance using Open License. It is also recommended to renew it every three years. But on the other note, I should mention that even Server 2012 Essentials include WSUS to control updates for example.

I don't understand what this had to do with what I said? They sold Windows 7 Enterprise with Software Assurance on an Open License six years ago.

I am talking about the process you have to go through to buy Windows licenses and licensing in general with Microsoft. I literally had to take a exam at one point on Microsoft licensing to be eligible for a program of theirs.

I wasn't complaining about the price, or available options, I was complaining about how hard they make it to actually give them money, see how much things cost, and to be clear about exactly what licenses you need.

If I recall correctly they want to get people on their 365. Not a good plan unless you trust Microsoft completely, of-course these kind of moves don't help their argument.

Sometimes, but significantly often, when I click on an email in the Outlook 365 web app, nothing happens. The display pane goes blank-white.

There is a noticable delay when I click to focus on the search bar, and often I have to retype because I click and go to start typing in my search term and lose the first few characters.

Almost always, when I search for an email in the Android app, it just hangs and even if I leave it to sit for minutes...

It's not about trust in motivation at this point. It's about trust in competency.

Unfortunately, it isn't just the web app... using full on outlook really sucks compared to Outlook + Exchange a decade ago. I understand it's more about distribution and scale, but it's annoying that your unread counters can't even stay properly synced.

A colleague had a similar problem, except email never worked in the browser. It took three weeks for Microsoft Support to fix it.

We'd have migrated to Google, except the system administrator had booked a holiday for two of the weeks.

Like going into an expensive store dressed like a poor man.

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