Standing in the Field @ Valley Forge

Standing in the Field

Notes from SJS Application Server Field Engineering

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Tuesday July 20, 2004
NetworkWorld on per processor licensing

NetworkWorld has an article that discusses the impact that multi-core technologies will have on enterprise software. Enterprise software is typically licensed per CPU these days (with some exceptions in specific technologies like identity management). This article points out that enterprise software vendors are defining their "CPU" licenses as "CPU core" licenses so that they can double their fees for dual core chips like Sun's UltraSPARC IV. Which seems unfair to me. It's not as if these vendors double the pricing everytime clock speed doubles. So why should doubling the number of cores per chip double their prices.

It strikes me as similar to how we got to per CPU licensing in the first place. Remember when "per user" was the predominant way to license databases? And then the internet came along and made it impossible to predict (or even know) how many users you would have? And then application servers came along with connection pooling mechanisms that made it even more difficult to measure "per user"? There was enough outrage over the "per internet user" licensing models that we ended up mostly with per CPU licensing.

I'm of the opinion that, once again, we will have enough outrage about "per core" licensing that software vendors will be forced to adapt. The "per CPU" license has been burdensome enough because it restricted consolidation and virtualization. Now as the definition of a CPU becomes more fluid I think that enterprises will draw a line in the sand. There is no way that companies are going to be willing to pay over a half million dollars worth of WebLogic licensing for a single Niagra processor.

So what will be the new licensing model? So far it appears to be the per employee model that Sun is promoting for the Java Enterprise System. Not only has it been successful for Sun, but I've heard various rumors that some other vendors may adopt it as well. There may be some refinement needed to accomodate industries that have a lot of non-technology workers, but so far it seems to work better than per CPU licensing.

P.S. There are a lot of reasons that industry has embraced the open source movement But I believe that another one key reason was that enterprises felt like they were being taken advantage of by enterprise software vendors. (I still find it absurd that Microsoft charges client licenses for server software.) If enterprise software vendors don't wise up about this issue, they may find that customers find other alternatives that are more flexible.

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(2004-07-20 23:48:24.0) Permalink