Software Licenses Are Taking Our Jarbs!

I know that in certain areas of engineering the software that an engineer uses can cost more per year than the engineer's salary (in certain cases significantly more). I imagine there are other fields where this is also true. Because the software is so expensive it is often stored on a central server so that anyone (up to a set number of people) who needs it can use it, but the company does not have to buy a copy for every employee. Alternatively they can use a license server, but either way the key idea is that for each license purchased one person can use the program at a time.

This has some advantage for people sharing an office since not everyone is using the exact same software at the same time. But there is a way to cut the cost of software in half - setup an office on the other side of the world so the company uses the licenses all day and night. Given the expense of the software it could be an advantage even if people in both offices made the same amount of money.

I have no idea if this is actually a major factor in outsourcing and setting up offices around the globe. But it seems like it would have some impact and no one ever talks about it. Doesn't seem too hard to come up with a license agreement that would not reward sending jobs oversees (In this post I'm not taking a position on if jobs should be sent over seas or not, but if someone is looking for an easy way to make an impact this seems like a good place to start). Could have a rule that the license is only for so many hours a day or just charge per man hour of usage of the software or could just charge by total number of engineers at the company or... Seems like there should be a reasonable solution that is neutral on where a company sets up its offices.

Oh and check out the new iTunes visualizer (in iTunes 8) - way cooler than the old one. The Genius thing seems cool, but I can't actually see myself using it.