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Microsoft System Center 2012 overhauls licensing, focuses on apps

19.04.2012
has formally shipped System Center 2012 management platform, adding features that create application-centric views of corporate infrastructure and - just as important - implementing a new licensing scheme designed to capitalize on customers' frustration with the leading competitor, VMware.

Microsoft says the new licensing structure cuts the number of license packages to two - standard and - down from nearly 100, a move the company says will make life simpler for IT departments.

Rather than buying the component parts of System Center singly or in bundles of just a few, customers will buy the entire suite.

VIRTUALIZATION FEUD:

That's good news for the largest businesses that are heavily investing in private cloud architectures and buy the data center license, says Paul DeGroot, principal consultant at Pica Communications.

The price of a data center license jumps from $2,620 for two processors and unlimited virtual machines to $3,615, he says. "There might be a bigger initial payment, but it covers all the virtual machines on a server," he says, as well as the full suite of features, including new ones. "This is a very significant change."