Why is Microsoft alienating its biggest customers? IT pros want TechNet back

Anthony Bolante

Pictured is Microsoft's corporate campus in Redmond, Washington on May 2, 2012.

You?d be forgiven if you missed the announcement on July 1 that Microsoft was ending its TechNet subscription program for IT professionals.

In fact, you?d be forgiven if you didn?t know what TechNet was. Few outside the information technology field do.

But the decision could impact tens of thousands of Microsoft?s best customers: enterprise and small-shop IT professionals worldwide at a time when companies are looking at a growing number of cloud-based IT alternatives.

First, some background: The TechNet program was introduced 15 years ago as a way for IT professionals to run tests of their systems on new Microsoft software before rolling out the update to the entire company. Basically, for a small yearly fee of a couple hundred dollars, Microsoft gave subscribers product keys (licenses) for practically all its server and desktop software to run test labs.

The software used to arrive every year in big packets of CDs; these days, it's primarily downloads.

This was a hugely popular program for IT managers who didn?t want to pay big bucks for access to each application.

Technically, TechNet licenses were only for evaluation purposes. IT departments were not supposed to use the licenses to actually run their systems using those licenses, but there was nothing in the software to prevent to them from doing just that.

Which brings us to another issue with the TechNet system: piracy. Microsoft has struggled with the issue of software piracy for years. Several times over the past few years, the company cut back the number of TechNet product keys it made available to subscribers in an attempt to stop subscribers from selling the keys illegally.

Emily Parkhurst covers the technology industry for the Puget Sound Business Journal/TechFlash.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TechFlash/~3/wX7o573MHOc/why-is-microsoft-alienating-its.html

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