"I wrote back thanking them for their letter and for raising the issue of license compliance," Hanafi recounted. "I indicated that I believed we were substantially overlicensed [and] that we would be seeking refunds for unused licenses. I didn't hear from them again."

On the home front, an IT director in New York whose experience closely mirrored that of Frantz recalled how he offered to revive a legacy Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) installation to run an internal scan to demonstrate his compliance. Microsoft's perplexing response, the IT director said, was that it didn't trust the information he'd get from SMS and that it would be too time-consuming to validate the information's accuracy.

"As Microsoft continues these types of practices," the IT director noted, "it makes a much stronger case for me to push more and more of our systems toward Apple and Linux, which I've been doing for the last two to three years."

Indeed, many other readers wrote to say that this case has pushed them over the edge and that they plan to re-evaluate alternatives to Microsoft. You can bet Microsoft now recognizes the ramifications of its actions. Obliviousness carries a very high price.

Don Tennant is editor in chief of Computerworld. Contact him at don_tennant@computerworld.com.