Both Oracle and Microsoft use some pretty creative means to inflate their income. See also 'free audits' by the BSA, which are nothing less than the setup for a shakedown. I've seen quite a few companies that waved the need for such an audit only to be presented with a bailiff and some guys in suits claiming to have received 'information' about illegal software being used on the premises.
This can get ugly - and expensive - real fast because in a large enough corporation it is stupidly easy to miss a detail and this will then be used to put in a claim of a few 100K worth of extra licenses that you need to buy to make the problem go away. It's the mafia, only now with bits and bytes and weird licensing terms that only they know how to interpret.
This is one of the main reasons why everything I do uses open source. The only time these companies still get some money through me is when I buy new hardware and MS levies their tax.
If all Oracle and Microsoft wanted to do was to 'sell some products and services' that would be one thing. But really what they want is to extract as much money from companies that use their products as they can get away with and if they have to use strong-arm tactics on sufficiently locked in customers to get that they'll be more than happy to do so.
The obvious defense - you don't have to do business with them at all - is one that is becoming a more and more viable choice. Twice now I have encountered a company that had transformed their internal applications to be web based using Apple products rather than Microsoft and licensing terms and costs were the main reasons given. I suspect this is going to be a trend of sorts and maybe this will be one backdoor that will allow 'linux on the desktop' to enter companies too (it would allow them to re-use the hardware they already have).
Of course MS has a whole 'TCO' dog-and-pony-show to prove that you'll lose money that way, based on all kinds of funky reasoning which sounds believable to pointy haired bosses.
It would be nice if 'the new Microsoft', Oracle etc. stopped waging war on their customers.
