Tag: licensing

VMware increases NSX price

Posted on May 6, 2016 by - News, Products

vmware-partner-link-bg-w-logoVMware has been having a few problems with its bottom line lately and it seems it is taking it out on its NSX prices.

The outfit has cut the product’s feature list to offer cheaper versions which do not cost as much as the full product but it has also jacked up the price of the top version of the product.

The more expensive product is aimed at companies wanting to create software defined data centres, which is a lucrative area.  NSX slips networking and security into the hypervisor and could be a good product for resellers to sell.

Now however it is getting a pricy option. A full NSX license cost US$6,000 per CPU socket although the cut down packages might be a little more viable. NSX Enterprise costs at $6,995 per CPU socket; Standard will cost $1,995 per CPU socket; and Advanced will cost $4,495 per CPU socket.

Advanced and Enterprise also get more license options. All three are available on a perpetual license; Advanced can also be licensed on a per-user basis, and Enterprise adds a per-VM licensing option.

Nvidia takes the licensing route

Posted on January 5, 2015 by - News

nvidia-gangnam-style-330pxIn a bid to generate more revenues, graphics firm Nvidia is to start licensing its GPU designs to other companies.
Nvidia has already started licensing its “Kepler” graphics processor and, according to Digitimes Research, it will do the same for its future processor Maxwell.
The move is not entirely unexpected – Nvidia is following in the footsteps of British chip company ARM.  ARM’s business is essentially rooted in licensing – its engineers design cores which are then fabricated by its customers.
The research house claims that although Nvidia has, in principle, been ready to license its intellectual property since June 2013, the big leap forward will come with the release of its Maxwell processor.
It believes Maxwell will show a performance boost of as much as 160 percent and that will be a revenue generator for the company.
Nvidia has a collection of something over 7,000 patents and has recently been increasingly litigious, filing lawsuits against giants Samsung and Qualcomm for allegedly infringing its patents.  It may find that these two companies will not necessarily become customers unless courts find in Nvidia’s favour.

Firms face XP migration nightmare

Posted on June 24, 2013 by - News

framedwindowsWindows 8.1 is around the corner – a reshaping of Windows 8, which received a lukewarm reception since its October 2012 launch. However, critics warn that the key question for businesses will be migration from Windows XP, when support for that operating system ends in early 2014.

Considering the poor economic conditions of much of the world, particularly in Europe, there are plenty of companies who simply cannot afford to, or do not want to, upgrade from their Windows XP boxes. But they will have to.

UK based IT efficiency company, Sumir Karayi, believes that Windows 8.1 could well be the post-XP iteration of Windows that businesses will seriously consider.

As support runs out for XP, these organisations will be faced with sky-high support costs or migration to a newer operation system, and as such, most should be planning a migration strategy, Karayi says.

Aside from the daunting financial risk in keeping XP on life support, Microsoft will no longer be patching critical security flaws. As such, companies still running XP could find themselves exposed to disaster.

“Most large enterprises are unaware of all the software applications they already have, let alone how many are actually being used, and how many licences they should pay for during a migration process,” Karayi warns. “The licensing issues surrounding software applications are complicated”.

“There is little consistency in the agreements and businesses are often left paying for far more than they actually require,” Karayi says.

As companies upgrade, then, they should make sure their migration strategies are compatible with their software licences.

The message, then, is “loud and clear” according to Karayi – if IT decision makers are to avoid shooting themselves in the foot, organisations must move away from XP before the deadline’s up.