Whether you like MS or not, I think a key point my collegue has missed in his statement, "Sure, this may save companies money but how much more on licensing and SA will they spending that they don't need?" is that since Software is typically about 7% of the annual IT budget, it is hardly a tough decsion to purchase licenses from any company that saves significant deployment effort.

The additional statement, "it is another massive attempt by MS to force you into their camp and on their latest OS's (particularly the desktop) to take advantage of other technology that they have that should be independent." is quite absurb in a free market captial society. MS and every other vendor is trying to get you to buy their stuff. Last time I checked, the Wall Street analysts are quite clear about that expectation as well.

Every company has practices that we as consumers don't like, just as the companies that we work for have policies and practices that some of our clients don't like. When will we stop making this about religion?