Considering a big portion of the readership here works in offices and the IT department etc, this should excite you guys. MS has a new licensing agreement that goes live on October 1st. The new deal causes office customers who buy in bulk to pay as much as 107% more for the software.

By eliminating certain options under the new licensing program, some technology managers contend they no longer have the choice to upgrade when they want. Instead, they feel railroaded into buying expensive maintenance contracts from Microsoft. Bill Henningsgaard, Microsoft's vice president of worldwide licensing and pricing, defended the changes. "I think customers have choice. They had choice before, and they have choice going forward."
[snip]
Bailey said the Oct. 1 deadline to switch to the new licensing plans is "way too short for our company given the economic downturn...We were never given time to budget properly. Microsoft would not sit still if one of its vendors did that to them. Why are they doing it to us?"

Of course it's the regular feeding frenzy of how awful and evil Microsoft is. Seems kind of poopy they would make such a hugely dramatic change in their pricing structure with such little notice. Especially peachy timing considering the current trend of the economy.

update Jack - This article title contains an unlicensed use of my name. $170 per client license!