Licenses For Hardware (was RE: [Asterisk-Users] Vonage)

[Chris Albertson]

--- Adam Goryachev <mailinglists at websitemanagers.com.au> wrote:
> > Jon Pounder wrote:
> > > A feature restricting licence for hardware is a moronic concept.
> > I'll agree wholeheartedly that it's sleazy, but to avoid putting
> too
> > fine a point on the issue, the Cisco license, if it's like other
> > licenses for products with embedded firmware, is for the software
> > running on the hardware, not for the hardware itself.
> 
> Two questions that begs to be asked is:
> Is the software useful without the hardware? (No)
> Is the hardware useful without the software? (No)

In Cisco's defense I'll say that,

1) Yes the hardware sans firmware is usfull.  It's a "spare part"
   In a company with say 500 ATA186s installed you need a few
   spares on hand.  You don't need to pay for software spares

2) They sell at least three _differenct_ software P/Ns so 
   it is not a 1:1 deal.  The box is a general purpose device
   that can run any of a small number of software products.

3) It seems a dumb idea it you pay boxes in ones and twos
   but un-bundling the S/W from the H/W allows for more
   "realistic" quality pricing.  They can offer very steep
   discounts for large quanity S/W orders (like a site license)
   but can't discount the hardware the same way.  Unbundling
   allows pricing flexibility for their larger customers.

   I remember where I used to work, thed always just buy a
   site license for the gzillion routers they owned.



=====
Chris Albertson
  Home:   310-376-1029  chrisalbertson90278 at yahoo.com
  Cell:   310-990-7550
  Office: 310-336-5189  Christopher.J.Albertson at aero.org
  KG6OMK

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