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Steve Kaplan, vice president of data center virtualization at Presidio Networked Solutions, Greenbelt, Md., said he thinks "organizations will be upset at Microsoft for stacking the deck financially" to favor Microsoft over iPads and Androids.
Although Microsoft has not yet revealed the cost of the CDL, Kaplan said that "given the benefits of no additional licensing required for companion devices running Windows, that will inevitably be a factor in choosing whether to utilize iPad, Android or Windows tablets."
Mike Hong, technology and business manager for Sound Microsystems, a Redmond, Wash.-based solution provider, says Microsoft is "shooting themselves in the foot" by restricting iPads and Androids using licensing tactics. "Trying to [implement restrictive terms] all by yourself never works for a manufacturer. It is the customer that decides what is better -- not the manufacturer. People are not going to buy this," Hong said.
However, as is often the case with Microsoft, some of the VDI changes it is introducing with Windows 8 are ones that will no doubt be positively received.
For example, Microsoft's current "Roaming Rights" for Software Assurance have been criticized for being overly restrictive because they don't apply to devices that a customer owns or controls, and can't be used on corporate networks, only public ones.
But with the CDL, and the Virtual Desktop Access (VDA) rights that Windows tablets will carry, these restrictions will disappear, which will pave the way for organizations to indulge their employees' bring-your-own-device whims. And this, at least, could represent a loosening of Microsoft's historically thorny desktop virtualization terms.
"Microsoft licensing for VDI still stinks, but the changes to roaming and VDI access for tablets, at least, are a significant step to sanity," said Paul DeGroot, principal analyst at Pica Communications, a Microsoft licensing consultancy in Camano Island, Wash.
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