Come January 1, 2009, the process of decoupling the Windows operating system, and especially the Windows Vista client, from computer hardware will advance to the next level, at least licensing-wise. This because of a couple of licensing options the Redmond company introduced at the start of September 2008 and which will only come into effects at the debut of the next year. According to market analysis firm Gartner, the new licenses introduced by Microsoft will pave the way for a new breed of PC deployment scenarios, one focused on virtualization.

Brian Gammage, VP & Gartner Fellow and Michael A. Silver, Gartner VP Distinguished Analyst indicated that the new Microsoft licensing initiatives would not only broaden the implementation and usage of virtualization technology in corporate IT infrastructures, but that it would also contribute to making Windows less tied to the hardware.

“On 3 September 2008, Microsoft announced two additional licensing options under its Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop (VECD) program that will enable broader use of PC virtual machines (VMs): One permits portability of a VM between machines covered under VECD for $23 per PC per year. It also allows a VM to occasionally be run on a home PC (such as from a USB stick, or connected to a hosted virtual desktop). The other permits deployment of a Windows VM to a PC owned by somebody else (for example, an employee or contractor) and costs $110 per user per year,” Gammage and Silver explained.

The bottom line is that with the new licensing models Microsoft has expanded greatly the flexibility enjoyed by its enterprise customers when it comes down to managing Windows platforms in relation to the underlying hardware. Microsoft is essentially making enterprises allow employees and contractors to use their own machines with virtualized copies of inhouse licensed Windows clients.

"For the first time, enterprises can deploy a corporate Windows OS that is not permanently tied to a single physical device. We expect that, over time, Microsoft will continue to increase the flexibility of license and devices. By offering this option through VECD, which is only available to Software Assurance customers, Microsoft also signals a continued commitment to its strategy of gradually enabling new virtualization usage models,” Gammage and Silver added.