A disturbing article in Infoworld describes the terms of the new Microsoft 6.0 software agreements. This agreement, which Microsoft pressured customers to take last year by eliminating upgrade pricing schemes, apparently has provisions that require acceleration payments of the entire contract in order to make licenses perpetual on change of control.

This appears to mean that if you bought a license with support for three year and then sold off part of your company, the agreement requires that you pay off all three years before transferring the software. The problem is that you don't get any more support after this point. Seems a bit unfair, since Microsoft is charging nearly 25% per year for the privilege of upgrades (but no real support).