New Microsoft Feature: Planned Obsolescence

Ryu2 writes: "According to this CNet story, Microsoft is thinking of from its current "perpetual" license scheme to a three-year contract for its enterprise customers, and most of its software. After the three years are up, customers have to pay up again or stop using the software. While the issue of subscriptions has come up before, this seems to imply that Microsoft is abandoning the traditional time-unlimited license altogether. With them setting the precendent, for good or for ill, for many things in the software industry, if this takes hold, how long will it be until every other business software firm jumps on this bandwagon?"