A spokesperson from the United Space Alliance stated the switch was made because ISS astronauts and cosmonauts needed an operating system “that was stable and reliable.”

Wow.

I don’t like Sales in general, but I do like IBM Sales because I supported the SMB Sales group for years.  They kept me busy.  They made deals and it didn’t even have to involve IBM hardware, software, maintenance or labor.   IBM is also a massive reseller.  They sold what the customer wanted to buy.  I recall one client account I was on insisted on Sun hardware, and IBM put Sun hardware into the project plan for me to price.

Is it still the same after Oracle has purchased Sun?  One of the first things I noticed after the similarity between IBM and Oracle’s CPU-based software licensing – both base the licensing on cores – I noticed Oracle skews their software core factor table to favor Sun hardware.  IBM doesn’t reduce the software licensing if a client runs their software on an IBM box.

Since I enjoy working out hard-partitioned, sub-capacity licensing (huge math geek), I found that the licensing disparity is most evident here.    And since Oracle’s known for databases, let’s say it’s Oracle Enterprise and IBM’s DB2.

The IBM calculation for PVU licenses needed for the DB2 product slightly favors the Sparc, and that’s only based on IBM’s core multiplier found online -  http://www-01.ibm.com/software/lotus/passportadvantage/pvu_licensing_for_customers.html

Everything else about the two configs I made up is the same.

When I compare the same hardware and talk about licensing Oracle Database Enterprise, the core multiplier from Oracle is half that of the IBM machine.  Current one at http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/contracts/processor-core-factor-table-070634.pdf

Although we could kid around and say a Power7 is twice the machine a SparcT5 is, when it comes to the cost of licensing software, Oracle is stacking the deck by suggesting there is significant savings if you run Oracle software on Sun hardware.

Don’t worry – I’ve noticed some licensing quirks that are in IBM’s favor, and I’ll be blogging about them as I dig deeper.

Harold Halpern, Scott Rosenberg and Bob Huggins at the Spring IAITAM show!

Register here.

By signing a license agreement with Microsoft, Hon Hai reduces the risk of litigation, in addition to protecting some of small customers that would have had less leverage in patent talks with Microsoft. This deal adds to the patent licensing agreements Microsoft has inked over the past few years with Samsung, HTC, Acer, LG and Barnes & Noble.

What do you think? Is this just another move by Microsoft to get Google to admit it has infringed on the company’s patents?

Product keys can be stolen and the certificates are not dated (and can also be easily stolen), therefore, they will ask for further proof – and if you don’t have it, you’ll have to purchase those products all over again.

Be prepared and keep good records – this is the only way to combat an audit and remain in compliance!

Know your downgrade rights – for volume licensing programs, therein lies the most flexibility. You should be able to downgrade to any previous version of the product. OEM licenses are a bit more complex. Professional versions have rights to downgrade to the two previous versions only.

You also have to be aware of your edition downgrade rights, which are only made available on a few Microsoft products (Windows Server and SQL server being among the few).

Why does this matter if you are just trying to use a different version or edition? It’s important because it’s putting your compliance in jeopardy if you don’t downgrade within the confines of your SLA. If you are using the wrong edition, or even a mismatch of CALs. Here is an example:

You buy a copy of Windows Server 2012 and downgrade it to Windows Server 2008, and you have Windows 2008 CALs = all good. Someone in the IT department upgrading a Windows Server 2008 installation back to Windows Server 2012 (which you have a license to do)  = now all of your clients that can access that server are now out of compliance. That’s because you only have Windows Server 2008 CALs, not Server 2012 CALs.

Before downgrading any products or versions of products – check and double check your downgrade rights, and then, be sure to communicate which versions and editions can be used within the company. Licensing compliance is tricky – especially with complexities set by vendors such as Microsoft!

• Oracle sells two lines of Unix servers, the T-series, based on the Sparc processors it designs in-house, and the higher-end M-series. Oracle announced the first M-series server designed by Oracle and based on one of its own Sparc processors, rather than Fujitsu’s Sparc64 chip.

• Oracle announced five new T-series servers on Tuesday. They’re mid-range systems based on its new Sparc T5 processor, which doubles the core count over the Sparc T4, from eight cores to 16, and boosts the clock-speed, I/O bandwidth and memory bandwidth.

• The new M-series server, called the M5-32, is a high-end SMP (symmetric multiprocessing) machine that will compete against IBM’s Power 795 Unix server.

• The difference between the T5 and M5 processors is that Oracle has removed some of the cores on the M5, which aren’t as useful in SMP systems, and added a much bigger Level 2 cache memory – six times bigger.

• The servers are all general-purpose machines, and Oracle isn’t saying yet when the T5 will find its way into its pre-integrated systems, such as the Exadata Database machine and Sparc SuperCluster.

Oracle terminated CedarCrestone’s partner license last year and filed a lawsuit claiming it was providing third-party support for Oracle’s software in an illegal manner. CedarCrestone is now fighting back denying claims made by Oracle, and claiming the company has unlawfully achieved an “overwhelming monopoly share” in what otherwise would be a free market for tax and regulatory updates on its software.”

Oracle has asked for the case to be dismissed as they claim no wrongdoing. We’ll keep watch on this one as it could get interesting and keep everyone in the loop!

Be sure to communicate with employees about how they access corporate licenses and the devices they use, as misuse will lead to an audit from Microsoft – which you don’t want!