The survey, conducted through ZDNet Australia's IT Manager Update newsletter, also found that 15 percent of respondents were still investigating implications, with another 15 percent indicating that the changes would result in spending cuts elsewhere. Only five percent of respondents felt that they wouldn't be affected by the changes.
Reports in recent weeks have labelled the new licensing plan as controversial, with cost one of the reasons customers were resisting the changes.
Other vendors, such as Corel, have also jumped into the fray by targeting Microsoft customers, who were unhappy with the changes.
One respondent to ZDNet Australia's survey said that it didn't like what Microsoft had done, and would be looking to minimise its spending with the vendor.
"We brought all of our licensing update in October 2001 without subscription advantage, and when we look at updating the suite we will consider alternatives--especially from the open source arena," said another respondent.
But Thomas Kablau, volume licensing program manager for Microsoft Australia, said its key aims in introducing the new Licence and Software Assurance model, known as Licensing 6.0, had been to simplify the licensing structure and process. He said it was also to rationalise the various licensing programs, so that they better correlated to each other.
In response to ZDNet Australia's poll finding that more than 50 percent of IT managers surveyed were looking at other vendors and options, Kablau said that Microsoft believed that its software has and would continue to deliver better value than its competitors' software.
"Customers will, and frankly should, look at any option that makes their business more productive and more agile," he said.
Kablau also said that it believed the changes it was making to its licensing would reduce non-compliance in its customer base. "As a general trend we have found that customers became non-compliant through not understanding the qualifying criteria for the numerous update options that we had in the past."
Kablau refused to reveal specific details about how many Australian customers had opted for the new program, except to say that it was pleased with the results to date.
Personally, I think there has been a huge backlash against Microsoft's Open License 6.0 program due to unwanted negative publicity.
Prior to the 31 July deadline, many reports criticising the new licensing model were unjustified. To put it simply, those writers did not bother studying the licensing guides published by Microsoft.
If IT managers are really unhappy with Microsoft's new licensing model and would prefer open source, then what they should do is write their own software products.
Thinking that open source will cost the company less is make-believe.