Softgrid came to life as a way to virtualize the desktop. Users have found tremendous savings in management and costs. Look at this recent case study.
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Software Assurance - what they don't tell you
Of course, they fail to mention that, at least at one time, you could not purchase Software Assurance after the fact. If you owned copies of Windows XP, you had to purchase an "upgrade" license if you owned OEM licenses and those had to have SA purchased with them to get SA benefits. If you let SA lapse, you add SA again later. It is like this on the server side too. I'm assuming since Vista is out, you'll need to purchase desktop OS upgrades to get the SA license because SA includes the upgrades.
Of course this article is crap as they don't mention what software assurance has to be added to in order to receive the benefit. Is it Desktop OS licenses that need SA or server CAL's?
Either way, 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.
Sure, this may save companies money but how much more on licensing and SA will they spending that they don't need?
Software Assurance
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?