One of the main motivations for quitting Microsoft 365 and adopting Google Workspace is spite, an emotion that sadly doesn’t produce a return on investment.

The source of that disappointing news is Domenico Scriva, a senior principal analyst at Gartner, who told the firm’s IT Symposium event in Australia that moving between the suites is also unlikely to save buyers much money.

He pointed out that Google Workspace licenses are cheaper than the E5 bundle that is Microsoft’s most popular M365 license, but that Google’s suite doesn’t cover telephony, security, business intelligence, or an OS license.

By the time users add all those bits to Google Workspace, he thinks they will pay $2 a month more than the cost of Microsoft’s suite – even after considering the fact that Google bundles its Gemini AI with Workspaces but Microsoft charges extra for Copilot.

Scriva said Google’s suite can be more cost effective when paired with an Apple Mac or Chromebook. Mac users get lower costs because their machines last longer than PCs, while Chromebook owners save on hardware purchase price but need to replace their machines more often.

Those numbers don’t consider the complexity of migrating between the suites, and the cost of moving. Scriva said dependencies built into either ecosystem are a likely source of migration complication, and the need for user training is another element that those who contemplate migrations sometimes neglect.

The analyst said he’s seen some M365 users trying to use the threat of migration as a negotiating tactic when renewing their Microsoft deals. He said that won’t work if you leave it too late, because Microsoft knows it’s not possible to make the move quickly.

He therefore advised starting work on a migration almost as soon as you sign a three-year M365 deal, because it takes at least two years to get it done.

If you do decide to move, he recommended having a specific outcome in mind, rather than just swapping one suite for another.

Productivity suites have scarcely changed in 30 years, he said, so it’s currently hard to see an outcome that makes a move worthwhile.

Happily, Scriva thinks AI may soon change that. He thinks we’re in a new wave of development of productivity suites in which AI assists with content creation. An imminent third wave, he predicted, will properly shake up the market by removing the need to use individual apps like word processors or presentation graphics packages, which he thinks will be replaced by some kind of AI interface that allows users to express what they want to do and then sit back and watch as their suite has a crack at the job.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has appeared to cast his ballot in the country’s State Duma elections using a Dell computer displaying what appears to be the familiar “Activate Windows” watermark, drawing attention to the use of foreign technology during an official Kremlin event.

The footage shows Putin completing an online ballot while sitting in front of a computer screen. As he selects his candidate, he remarks, “You can’t go wrong.” Images from the video appear to show the Windows activation watermark in the lower-right portion of the display, although the footage does not independently establish why the operating system was not activated.

The vote was for deputies to Russia’s ninth State Duma, with Putin once again choosing to vote remotely. Russian state media outlet TASS also reported that residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, along with the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, would participate in the legislative elections for the first time.

The legal spat between secondhand software reseller ValueLicensing and Microsoft took another turn this week: a consent order was published with demands for documents from past and present Microsoft head honchos, and a planned case management conference was cancelled.

Several requests in the order revolved around a historic, potentially explosive internal document written by Microsoft entitled the “Second-Hand Software” (SHS) Presentation.

ValueLicensing and Microsoft agreed to vacate the case management conference ahead of its scheduled date on September 14, 2026. The result is the Consent Order, which, unsurprisingly, focuses on locating and asking for the disclosure of Microsoft documents that may bear on the reseller’s allegation that the company offered incentives for customers to shift to subscription services in return for not selling their pre-owned licenses.

The confidentiality designation applied to several documents in the case has also been lifted.

In addition, there are many references to a June 2013 document that Microsoft disclosed on December 22, 2025, entitled “Second-Hand Software Presentation” (SHS Presentation).

June 2013 was a busy time for Microsoft: it had launched the Office 365 subscription service two years previously, but there was a question over what to do about those customers with perpetual licenses that Microsoft wanted to move into the brave new world of “an always-up-to-date cloud service, at a predictable monthly subscription.”

While the content of the SHS Presentation has yet to be made public, the Consent Order treats it as a “Known Adverse Document,” meaning it is unlikely to be good news for Microsoft. Furthermore, the consent order requires Microsoft to explain by October 31 why it had not disclosed it earlier. This case was filed in 2021 and yet it took until the end of 2025 for Microsoft to produce the presentation.

Microsoft was also asked to conduct extensive, unredacted disclosure searches across its corporate mailboxes and SharePoint accounts of high-level executives for search terms including “antitrust,” “used licenses,” “second hand”, and “Value Licensing,” between July 3, 2012 and June 1, 2020. It has until November 30 to produce any documents found during the search.

Execs whose mailboxes and document repositories must be searched include Richard Chin, currently a Corporate VP at Microsoft responsible for the company’s monetisation approach and who was a General Manager between 2012 and 2020 working on pricing, licensing, and the business models in the Cloud and AI world. Kevin Turner, who was Chief Operating Officer at Microsoft from 2005 to 2016, is also on the list.

As for confidentiality, the consent order stated, “No blanket or default designation of such documents as ‘Restricted’ or ‘Confidential’ shall be applied.” Instead, it’ll be on a document-by-document basis and “limited to the precise words, figures or passages said to be sensitive; and be supported by specific reasons rather than general assertions.”

“Defendants shall disclose by no later than 4pm on 30 November 2026 any further documents they have identified relating to the same or similar matters addressed in the SHS Presentation.”

Microsoft will also keep ValueLicensing apprised of its progress every 21 days.

ValueLicensing boss Jonathan Horley said, “ValueLicensing have been working to get appropriate disclosure for some years and this Order is the result of that work and more recently disclosed documents.

“This is a further stage enabling a better understanding of how Microsoft dealt with the second-hand software market which brings a liability trial one stage closer.”

The case has had several twists over the years, not least Microsoft’s “Hail Mary” attempt to make it about copyright rather than the allegation that it deliberately stifled the sale of secondhand software licenses. This latest turn might eventually give an intriguing insight into how the US biz dealt with the market while encouraging customers to embrace subscriptions.

Companies are getting more selective about replacing legacy kit such as mainframe systems, and rising AI investment is one of the factors causing them to hold onto these existing assets for longer.

Managed services biz Ensono claims in its 2026 State of IT Modernisation report that 78 percent of IT decision makers regard legacy systems as more important today than they did two years ago, and this is because such systems are viewed as key to making AI work for their organisation.

The report is based on a survey of 500 IT decision-makers and line-of-business leaders conducted by the firm across the US and UK.

Its findings show that AI is reshaping modernisation priorities, but that corporates are still grappling with many of the challenges that have traditionally complicated modernisation efforts, such as budget overruns, delayed initiatives, and talent shortages.

Ensono found that 45 percent of firms are actively scaling AI deployments across their organisation, while 44 percent are investing in targeted, high-impact use cases.

Supporting AI, automation, and advanced data initiatives is now the top pressure driving modernisation, while more than half of companies say that AI is helping advance modernisation by delivering through greater automation and improved efficiency.

Among the barriers businesses face, the top challenges to achieving AI goals are said to be difficulty integrating AI into existing workflows and business processes (33 percent of respondents) and infrastructure limitations (28 percent).

For this reason, Ensono says that those legacy systems are taking on new strategic value as organisations attempt to scale their AI rollout. Nearly half of organisations view legacy systems such as mainframes as a critical foundation for AI and an important source of data for this purpose, while 47 percent use them selectively for specific AI applications.

More than half of organisations are optimising and extending legacy systems while modernising applications where they are, rather than replacing them outright. This is an approach that’s slightly more common in the UK (57 percent of respondents) than the US (48 percent).

“Enterprises are discovering that legacy systems, like the mainframe, are intensely powerful, reliable and efficient sources of computing that can now be augmented and made more agile thanks to AI,” says Ensono’s Chief Strategy Officer Brian Klingbeil.

“These systems contain decades of data and business logic that drive many companies. The advantage will go to organisations that understand their environments well enough to distinguish what should be replaced versus what should be augmented, and embrace new modernisation methods that simply were not available even 18 months ago.”

However, using the mainframe as a foundation for AI rollouts was noted by infrastructure services firm Kyndryl two years ago. It found that big iron was becoming a prime candidate to host and run AI workloads, while enterprises were increasingly integrating their mainframes with modern infrastructure.

This meant moving some workloads off the mainframe while updating others in place to continue to benefit from the security and reliability of the platform.

Analyst Gartner also said earlier this year that migrating workloads to a mainframe made more sense for VMware users than adopting Broadcom’s new licenses.

Elsewhere, HPE managing director for UK, Middle East and Africa said that enterprise customers are opting to sweat IT assets for longer, moving refresh cycles from five years to seven years, for example.

“I think we’re seeing earlier planning for critical projects. I think a lot of customers are looking much further ahead on their roadmap of spend at the things they have to do, because maybe some technology is going end of support or the lease is expiring at the datacenter,” he said.

“So I think you’re seeing a decision tree of, do we pause here, and do we sweat the asset for a little bit longer, or is this essential to move ahead? I think it’s fundamentally forcing a rethink for customers.”

Broadcom appears firmly in the crosshairs of European antitrust watchdogs, with European Union (EU) officials reportedly grilling cloud providers impacted by sweeping licensing changes.

Bloomberg reports that European cloud firms are being subject to questions from antitrust officials on the importance of VMware offerings and to what extent they could be easily replaced. Cloud service providers are also reportedly being asked for any new certification arrangements they might deem “unfair.”

Should the commission eventually decide to escalate the matter, it could launch a formal investigation or intervene more quickly with the option of imposing so-called “interim measures” – temporary orders that can only be implemented in the event officials find immediate risk of serious and irreparable damage to competition. These include ordering companies to pause at-issue practices for a short time.

Such measures, though, are rarely used, and in the event they ever are, legal challenges can be brought by the affected company, further slowing the process. Companies found to breach EU antitrust laws can be hit by fines of up to 10% of their global annual revenue, though such instances are few and far between.

Since its $61 billion takeover of VMware closed in late November 2023, Broadcom has instigated sweeping changes, many of which have caused consternation among some customers.

Ripping up perpetual license offerings to create subscription-based mass bundles resulted in customers purchasing subscriptions to services they don’t need just to access the ones they do.

Broadcom has also shuttered the Advantage Partner Program for VMware Cloud Service Providers (VCSP), replacing it with an invite-only system. The White Label model, which allowed smaller cloud service providers to work through Pinnacle or Premier partners, was also retired. And just last week, Broadcom pulled the plug on a software kit that allowed rivals to migrate virtual machines away from VMware.

Customer consternation has seen a considerable number of VMware users jump ship, much to the delight of Nutanix, Red Hat, and even some hyperscalers.

Broadcom, though, has consistently been defiant, maintaining an uncompromising stance amid VMware related-legal spats with disgruntled ex’s like Tesco, Siemens, and more recently, T-Mobile US.

CEO Hock Tan previously proudly proclaimed that more than 90% of VMware’s 10,000 largest customers have signed up for the vendor’s Cloud Foundation (VCF) platform. At the company’s recent Explore event in Las Vegas, chief product officer Paul Turner tried to paint the private cloud offering as a means to better manage surging token costs.

That hasn’t stopped Broadcom from being painted as public enemy No. 1 by the Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers in Europe (CISPE). The group took issue with the shuttering of VCSP, filing a complaint with the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition alleging that it would force many European communication service providers to exit the market.

Broadcom also recently lost out in a fight with EU antitrust regulators over access to documents it contended were covered by American legal professional privilege. The EU General Court sided with the bloc’s regulators, however, finding that “it is for the commission to decide whether a particular item of information is necessary to enable it to bring to light an infringement of the EU competition rules.”

Arista Networks is embroiled in a dispute over VeloCloud support services, mirroring customer grievances levelled against Broadcom, the brand’s former owner.

Managed service provider TPx Communications filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in late June as it sought to restructure, having accrued debts of around $1.1 billion. During the bankruptcy process, the company forked out for perpetual VeloCloud licenses and support to Arista to ensure its mission-critical infrastructure kept on running.

According to TPx, Arista throttled updates, security patches, and administrative access while dangling a $46 million, three-year subscription deal as the price of getting full service back – a steep rise considering that the company said it has paid $59 million for VeloCloud access since 2016.

TPx has taken a complaint to the courts, requesting a judge grant an order finding Arista to have breached its contract and that its restructuring efforts would “suffer irreparable harm.”

“The balance of hardships favours injunctive relief. Without an injunction, TPx faces substantial, irreversible harm, and Arista comparatively would experience little harm from having to return to its decade-long offering of services,” a Texas bankruptcy court filing reads.

TPx has been using VeloCloud for years to support offerings like its managed SD-WAN delivery platform. The company contends that a deal signed with former VeloCloud owner Broadcom in 2021 locked in prices after its subscription licenses converted to perpetual, along with three years of support.

But Broadcom sold VeloCloud to Arista last July for a price believed to be a cool $1 billion.

Having paid what it believed it owed Arista in the summer – some $2.34 million and a further $1.84 million for support – TPx alleges the vendor pulled the rug out from under them, going as far as to remove high-privilege account access, citing apparent security risks.

Arista argues that the amount paid by TPx covered license conversion as well as limited technical support, but not software upgrades, hosted orchestration, or other subscription-tier services. Such options required separate payment under a different contract clause, the vendor contends.

Arista says it did provide subscription-level services for about four months as a courtesy but warned in a letter that upgrade access would end May 20, and that its $46 million subscription quote already reflected a “significant discount” for TPx’s perpetual licenses.

The VeloCloud owner also objected to TPx’s bankruptcy efforts. A 98-page filing saw it challenge TPx’s attempts to hold onto VeloCloud contracts through bankruptcy, and claim it only gave Arista eight days to object after the restructuring-plan notice. The vendor also took issue with TPx for failing to list every relevant agreement, not disclosing potential-purchaser information, and not supplying financial projections for the reorganised company.

“[TPx] have provided virtually no adequate assurance information relating to the party that will purportedly perform under the Arista agreements post-assumption,” the filing dated July 21 reads.

The pair are set to duke it out before a court-appointed mediator. The case continues.

Former VeloCloud owner Broadcom has faced its fair share of customer legal actions after revamping VMware’s flagship Cloud Foundation (VCF) offering. The likes of Siemens, AT&T, and retail giant Tesco took action in the wake of licensing and support changes.

Just last week, the VMware parent pulled the plug on a software development kit (SDK) used by rivals to migrate virtual machines away from the platform, much to the chagrin of virtualisation competitors.

Manufacturers selling products with digital elements in the EU must now report actively exploited vulnerabilities to cybersecurity authorities under the Cyber Resilience Act’s mandatory reporting rules.

The reporting duties set out in Article 14 of the CRA became applicable today. Subject to the regulation’s exemptions, they apply to manufacturers of products with digital elements made available in the EU, regardless of where those manufacturers are based.

Manufacturers must submit an early warning within 24 hours of becoming aware of an actively exploited vulnerability, followed by a more detailed notification within 72 hours.

The same deadlines apply to severe incidents affecting the security of products with digital elements.

The only difference in timing is related to the final report. Manufacturers must provide a final report on an actively exploited vulnerability within 14 days of making a corrective or mitigating measure available. For serious incidents, the final report is due one month after the first report.

Darren Anstee, CTO for security at Netscout, said the reporting deadlines introduce much-needed urgency in working toward global cyber resilience.

“The 24-hour window in which an initial warning must be reported creates a level of urgency, with subsequent deadlines ensuring that the gathering and release of additional information is prompt,” he said.

“Better, more rapid sharing of information helps organisations put defences and mitigating controls in place when they know there is heightened risk.”

EU and non-EU manufacturers must file these reports through ENISA’s Single Reporting Platform (SRP).

Notifications are addressed to the coordinating computer security incident response team (CSIRT) determined under the CRA. For an EU manufacturer, this is generally the CSIRT for the member state where it has its main establishment; separate rules determine the coordinator for manufacturers based outside the bloc.

Manufacturers must also inform affected users, where appropriate, about actively exploited vulnerabilities or severe incidents. The CRA states that users must be informed of available corrections or mitigations without undue delay.

Generally, failures under the CRA are punishable by varying tiers of fines, the most serious of which can reach €15 million ($17.4 million) or 2.5 percent of the offender’s annual turnover, whichever is higher.

The reporting duties that took effect today are classified as core responsibilities under the act, meaning failures to comply with them could lead to the maximum fines being issued.

They are the latest step in the EU’s plan to drip-feed tighter security regulations on companies operating in the bloc.

Most remaining CRA provisions become applicable on December 11, 2027, at which time manufacturers will also be required to embed security by design and default. That means no default passwords and security updates are no longer optional.

Products covered by the CRA will also have to undergo the applicable conformity assessment before being placed on the EU market and bearing a CE mark.

VMware has defended its decision to end public downloads of its Virtual Disk Development Kit (VDDK).

VDDK is an SDK that a Broadcom technical document describes as “a set of libraries and utilities that enable software developers to create applications that can access and manipulate virtual disks used” and also “provides APIs for backup and recovery, cloning, and other operations on virtual disks.”

Those qualities mean VDDK is also useful when moving VMs from VMware to another virtualisation environment.

VMware’s rivals spotted that and made VDDK part of their migration tools. Nutanix’s Move, for example, requires a VDDK library to do the job. Red Hat also recommends using VDDK for migrations.

ShapeBlue, an integrator that specialises in Apache CloudStack, an alternative to VMware, rates VDDK as an important part of migration tools.

“The virt-v2v engine that sits underneath most VMware-to-KVM conversion work supports VDDK as an input transport,” the company wrote in late August.

ShapeBlue’s post appeared a day or two after VMware, without fanfare or an explanation, took down the web pages that offered VDDK downloads.

“A vendor is entitled to change how it distributes an SDK,” ShapeBlue wrote. “Doing it without a word, while the Apache CloudStack administration guide and other projects’ install instructions still tell people to click a link that no longer resolves, is something else.”

“The cost lands unevenly too,” the company added. “A large backup vendor with a partner relationship has someone to call. A three-person migration consultancy, an open-source project, or a customer converting their own workloads has a forum post and a 404.”

In an email, VMware defended its actions. To understand its response, know that VMware calls third party developers who work with its products technology alliance partners – aka “TAPs”.

“Access to the VDDK is still available through select TAP for its licensed use case, which has always been backup and recovery,” said VMware. “Customers needing backup and recovery capabilities can choose from the many approved solutions already available from these partners.”

“The VDDK is not a customer entitlement. It is a software development kit covered by its own developer license and was never included with a Broadcom software purchase,” a company spokesperson added.

VMware’s argument is therefore that users should not expect they can use VDDK, and that migrations is an unlicensed use case for the tool – which remains available as part of products from TAP members.

VMware’s rivals have pointed out that ending public VDDK downloads could disrupt some migration projects that have already commenced, making the withdrawal of downloads jarring given the virtualisation giant hasn’t previously policed use of the SDK.

Services organisations that perform VMware migrations have found workarounds that make it possible to migrate VMs without needing VDDK.

VMware’s decision to stop public VDDK downloads comes at a time when its changed licensing policies have seen some users either consider reducing their use of its products – as was the case at VMware channel partner Rackspace – or shifting to a rival platform.

VDDK has been downloadable for years and VMware cannot have been ignorant of how its rivals used the SDK to facilitate migrations. It’s therefore not hard to conclude that this is a defensive move by VMware, given it allowed downloads for years.

Moving VMs is, however, among the easier parts of a virtualisation migration project. Rebuilding or replacing the entirety of a virtualised environment, across networks, security, and storage, is the hard part and VMware knows it – which is why it offers a site recovery tool that doubles as a migration utility.

Removing easy access to VDDK therefore doesn’t change much for those planning a move away from VMware.