Microsoft rolls back oppressive Office 2013 licensing policy

Restrictive end user licensing agreements (EULA) in the software products world is nothing new, but when it gets overboard, then customers start complaining. This is what has exactly happened in the case of Microsoft and its new licensing policy relating to its Office 2013 retail versions.
The new policy, now rolled back, after Microsoft facing ire of customers, stated that: "They cannot delete or move Office 2013 to another PC once installed."

According to recent report in ComputerWorld, it said, "Under the now-defunct licensing terms, customers were not allowed to delete Office 2013 on one machine, then install it on another, even if that second PC was a replacement for the first, which may have been lost, stolen, damaged or simply outworn its usefulness. The only exception was if a computer had conked out while under warranty".

This was clearly an oppressive policy and instances like PC getting stolen or hard disk getting crashed will put the users in a fix. This was a new EULA put up in Office 2013 and unlike Office 2010 and its retail editions can be freely re-installed by the user on to a different machine and not necessarily tied to the first installed machine.

The EULA had since been rolled out by Microsoft and as per the revised one - the users of Office 2013 retail copies across versions can ‘reassign the license to another PC they own or control'.
The reversal of Office 2013 EULA is a clear indication that ‘oppressive lock in approaches' will no longer work as customers are increasingly looking at alternates and will jump to competing products if they see more choice and freedom.

While it is unclear, why Microsoft adopted a new EULA for Office 2013 retail version, but experts see its intent to clearly differentiate its cloud offering Office 365 and retail version and making Office 365 more agile and nimble as compared to the ‘on premise editions'.

From an Indian perspective, if Microsoft had not rolled back its new EULA, then it might have hurt its enterprise buying significantly as in an Indian context - a product locked into one machine might not have gone well. Interestingly Microsoft is aggressively positioning its Office 365 across segments in India and it is to be seen how much of new retail copies it will be able to push here in the coming quarters.

Clearly, irrespective of the EULA, one of the biggest problem here in India that is rampant in the SMB and consumer space for its Microsoft's Office suite is piracy, and given that Microsoft will predominantly invest its energies in pushing more of Office 365 than the retail editions here in India.

(The news was first published on www.dqindia.com)