[jasonkolb]

This is a one-time hit. They're now enforcing licensing very strictly where they didn't before and offering "nicer" terms if they buy some Azure instead of paying those costs retroactively. It'll only work once, and will create a lot of bad karma.

[bignaj]

What exactly is your source and/or position of expertise here? Sounds like a lot of speculation and/or FUD. I was interested in this, but couldn't find any sources to back up your statements.

[spydum]

Can confirm: big enterprise shops all over have had a serious tightening of SQL Server licenses, as well as other product suites, with major incentives for moving workloads to Azure.

However, I don't know if this is a one time deal: it may grease the wheels on a lot of enterprise shops willingness to "Trust the cloud".

[nick_riviera]

Confirmed here as well. Just had an audit smackdown. Problem is you never know you're in compliance or not due to various usage policies of MSDN licenses etc for internal use and the definition of internal use changes depending on how much they want you to pay.

Also SQL2012 licenses cost us a fair whack due to the logical vs core licensing changes.

[louthy]

Also confirmed: MS are trying to squeeze us on SQL Server costs. So we're looking to switch away from SQL Server. Thanks for the headache MS.

[yuhong]

I know: http://www.crn.com/news/cloud/300072551/microsofts-enterpris...