“At one time or another you may have used a rented-out Windows PC, be that at business kiosks or Internet cafes. Technically speaking, though, doing so has never been legal. As of January 1, 2010, the licensing terms for Windows and Microsoft Office have been tweaked so that those that wish to rent, lease, or outsource desktop PCs to third parties with either software can do so by paying an extra fee.”
…before they start charging per document you create? Sheesh. If the PC has a ‘paid-for’ license, aren’t they already getting their money?
Still, these kind of tactics will only push people to look for alternatives…and that can only be a good thing.
Actually this opens rather weird new business model for support firms. Normally when businesses lease computers from support firms they need to buy volume licensing to themself. In this new model support firm can buy volume licenses and then rent those with computers to client. This has nice shadow effect since the buyer don’t actually see cost structure anymore. Clever for business and perhaps cheaper for customers.
This is also reason why Microsoft hasn’t allowed renting before since it would lead misusage of volume licensing.
This opens the possibility for people to lease computers at a cheap price, and get a new computer every few years.
Side Note: Every advertisement that I see on OSNews is a “Google Nexus One” ad lately…
Edited 2010-01-12 03:48 UTC
On that side note, I was thinking about that yesterday…
Google is, by all means probably the largest advertising firm ever created. Now that they have their very own product to sell…. you’ll see ads EVERYWHERE!