A couple of months the I surveyed 101 members of the grandly titled Entelechy Associates Desktop Leadership Panel about their  post-Windows XP desktop management plans. The Entelechy Associates Desktop Leadership Panel is my network of desktop IT decision-makers that I survey on issues relating to desktop management, mobility, and application delivery in return for access to the index data behind my surveys.

End of message. Seriously that’s all the blog post you get today.

On August 12, 1981 Philip “Don” Estridge introduced the world to the IBM 5150 Personal Computer. At the time he shocked IBM executives by forecasting that that IBM would sell 250,000 PCs in three years, 10 times as many as IBM’s best-selling computer to date.

1 TS can be substituted for VDI in 80% of use cases
2 Hosted desktops of any flavor, TS or VDI (persistent or non-presistent) are not secure
3 Cost savings is the wrong reason to look into VDI It’s not cheaper Sorry
4 Microsoft licensing is a friggin mess Don’t trust VAR’s or SP’s: Involve an MS account exec before venturing into VDI
5 Anyone investigating VDIaaS should also look into TS DaaS and Intune

Well yes, but really no, sorry.

How about letting someone know.

Microsoft’s head of licensing worldwide is Joe Matz,  his email address is jmatz@microsoft.com

Let him know how the needless complexity of Windows licensing is holding your business back. Explain to him how BYOD policies and COiT activities will make it practically impossible for you to maintain compliance with VDI licensing rules. Tell him how you would like to buy DaaS, but can’t find anyone who can afford to sell it to you in the way you want to buy it because they have to dedicate hardware to supporting you, and that having to buy and manage VDA licenses both cripples the inherent flexibility of DaaS and makes it more expensive than licensing a conventional desktop.  Tell him how this mess will accelerate your move towards commodity web services like Google Docs, where Microsoft doesn’t make any money.

1. OnLive announces free hosted virtual desktop service
2. Massed ranks of click hungry “journalists” offer positive reviews
3. Real experts question the legitimacy of the service
4. “Thanks for your email We have never commented on any licensing agreements” - OnLive
5. Brian Madden quits MVP program in protest
6. Microsoft suggests all is not well
7. Guise Bule announces DesktopsOnDemand 
8. Crickets

In short, everybody in the industry who understands Microsoft’s licensing terms for desktop virtualization (that’s about six people) have come out and said that what OnLive is doing is in breach of Microsoft’s licensing rules for Windows 7 — not that it can’t be done profitably, but that it can’t be done at all.

Our licensing terms provide clarity and consistency for our partners, ensure a quality experience for end customers using Windows across a variety of devices

Joe Matz,
Corporate Vice President, Worldwide Licensing and Pricing, Microsoft

Bollocks

Simon Bramfitt,
Analyst

and think about joining the V3 Desktop Cloud Live event here on April 2 10 AM PST.

V3 Systems, isn’t Citrix, Cisco, or VMware, it’s a small startup with a first-class piece of technology and a small group of highly motivated people who dearly deserve to succeed.

In a blog post today Joe Matz  (Corporate Vice President, Worldwide Licensing and Pricing, Microsoft) made Microsoft’s position abundantly clear.

 We are actively engaged with OnLive with the hope of bringing them into a properly licensed scenario, and we are committed to seeing this issue is resolved.