As Linuxphiles descend on Boston for the big LinuxWorld convention scheduled to begin next week, Microsoft has issued a press release
touting a pair of recent independent analyst reports that praise its
indemnification initiatives.
The reports from IDC and Forrester Research highlight the
improvements made to Microsoft’s indemnification program last November when the company extended protection to end users of a long list of current and
past versions of its software.
Microsoft’s indemnification program covers the Windows operating system, Office and Windows Server System, as well as intellectual
property disputes that could arise from patent, copyright, trade secret and
trademark disputes. As part of the program, Microsoft has stated that it
would pay any resulting damage awards or settlements relating to its
software and defend any covered claim.
IDC’s report, “Microsoft Augments Intellectual Property
Indemnification,” examines the indemnification and its market
implications. According to Stephen Graham, group vice president of the IDC software business strategies group and one of the report authors,
end user intellectual support really does matter for end users.
“It’s important to remember the potential disruption a
customer can face from the threat of litigation alone,” Graham told internetnews.com. “And it’s also important to point out that there are a number of issues that underlie the need for end users to take a rational approach to understand and assess their risk.”
There are a number of noteworthy aspects to Microsoft’s indemnification
initiatives, though their relative importance and what makes it “better”
ultimately depend on the needs of an individual company, according to
Graham.
“One aspect that does set it apart from other programs/policies is how a
customer engages the coverage in that there are no contract addendums, etc.,
required,” Graham explained. “This is something we’ve noted as important for
customers to clarify — how does this actually work and when am I covered?”
Forrester Research’s report, “Microsoft: Protecting Its
Customers,” notes the initiative would offer greater protection to
Microsoft’s customers.
“By expanding protection to average consumers, Microsoft has set a precedent
that should help protect the investments of its customers — protection not
currently offered by other vendors,” Julie Giera, a vice president of
Forrester Research, said in a statement.
Customer indemnification has been a big issue for many on the Linux
side of the IT industry owing to the ongoing intellectual property dispute
with SCO.
Linux vendors, including Red Hat and Novell, as well as resellers like HP and IBM
have all taken moves to indemnify their customers.
Microsoft is aware of its competitors’ indemnification initiatives and isn’t
worried about users making a comparison between them.
“We recognize that some people are now comparing the indemnification offers
IBM, Sun, HP, Novell, RedHat and Microsoft are making for their products, and
we encourage them to do so,” Martin Taylor, general manager of the platform
strategy group at Microsoft, told internetnews.com. “The level of protection offered by each company varies, and we think customers benefit from having the broadest protection available. Our goal is to provide the fullest
coverage possible for our customers.
“This is an important industry issue and vendors owe it to their customers
to stand behind their software,” he added.
