Vista cracked 'next level' , now SPP ?

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MS has spent a decade with the Honor System with regards to licensing. Of
course we got activation and WGA as a result. So much for thinking in a
positve way.

In my years as an unemployment insurance compliance auditor with my state
agency I learned that about 5% of the population cannot not make the correct
moral decision when money is involved even when they know they will probably
be caught. Put folks on their honor and that percentage rises disturbingly.
It's the same reality that MS has had to learn to manage.
 
Hi,


For many, price is a major factor and it is one of the reasons for MS to
come up a "starter" edition in some countries.

For "habitual" criminals, price may not be the major factor and is
irrelevant but habitual criminals are not all those who breaking the laws
either for piracy or other crimes.

About 10 (or more) years ago when I visited several Asian countries, sales
price for Office was about 5-6 times higher than the price in the sates and
almost everyone was using pirated copies. In fact, they said it would be
"dumb" for buying a legitimate copy at that price. Many things have been
done by different parties, and among others, MS reduced the price to similar
level as in the states, and as far as I know, very little are using pirated
copies now in some of those countries, and of course, not all. I don't know
about other European countries, but I do have many French friends and
associates, and it was similar in France.

I don't think there is a way for totally eliminating all crimes including
piracy, so if we are going to use 0% crime rate, it would be a pure debate
without any meaning. I am not saying we are doing this, but this is
something that we should concur before getting into meaningful discussions
for this subject, and won't fall into the trap from someone wish us to
falsely believe.

There are certain ways for reducing piracy related to affordability:

(1) help them to raise living standards so they can afford to buy
(2) reduce price so it can be more affordable
(3) tougher laws for habitual criminals

And please remember computer is almost a must for different personal and
business purposes, so it's no longer a thing for nice-to-have and fine if
without it. So what is more important is to help those who are not habitual
criminals but using pirated copies for reasons. Again, I am not justifying
their reasons and I am against piracy.

My point is, things happened for many reasons and it'd be too easy and too
lazy for just saying all are the same. If that's the case, there will be
only one sentencing for all criminals and will not based on the "motives" of
the crimes committed, right?
 
Whatever peoples opinions are on piracy, one thing that stands out, is that
the current anti piracy measures are having little or no impact

Personally I don't believe tougher penalties will not work seeing this is a
global problem and the highest percentage of piracy usually occurs in
countries that lack the resources to presue offenders.

MSFT's implementation of SPP and WGA are based on the right idea's but in
practice they don't seem to be working.

I believe there will be a time that operating systems such as VISTA will no
longer be viable or profitable, and all we'll be left with will be
opensource OS's like Linux, and the focus of MSFT and APPLE will shift
towards online services inorder to remain profitable. It will be a sad day
when this happens and it may not happen for a long time, but with piracy
becomming more and more prevalent it seems inevitable
 
WGA is really for preventing casual copying, not piracy. Casual copying
(overloading a Windows license by installing on more computers than allowed
by the license) continues to be a major loss of revenue with the most
harmful practice being the misuse of volume license copies.
 
What if Microsoft gave Vista away to anyone who wants it for free and lived
of the profits from the applications it develops for Vista?
 
The only fallacy of that logic is - those revenues may or may not incur in
the first place, which is similar to the one used for - if I raise the price
to X level, I'd make Y additional revenues but it failed to include those
dropped revenues because of price increase.

Someone mentioned about "family discount", sort of volume license for
families or individuals using more than one computer which is a pretty good
idea. And there are many other brilliant ideas can be investigated for
either reducing casual copying (which is a form of using pirated copies in
my opinion) or the "officially" recognized using pirated copies.

For whatever reasons might be, it appears that the company took the most
dramatic measure instead of other possibilities. As for outsiders, such as
myself, we can only judge by what has been done.
 
I have Office 2007 on this computer and I really like it. But. . . there's
no way that, when the beta ends, I will be able to afford to buy it as a
full version. For the amount that I use it I just couldn't justify the cost
to myself (and my wife).

What I would go for though, if I could get an earlier version, pirated or
not, to run and activate on this machine, then an upgrade version would be
more reasonable for me.
Otherwise it will be OpenOffice, although I don't like it as much, and
Microsoft will get nothing from me.

I realize that this is going to offend a lot of people, but that's how it
is, and how I feel. I'm just a home user, I have no professional uses for
any software, I potter with the different applications. Don't get me wrong
though, if I do use a program on a regular basis then I will go and purchase
it, I think that's only fair.

From where I stand at the bottom of the ladder, the people down here with me
aren't going to go out and buy programs like Office and Photoshop if the
underground supply dries up, they'll just use something else that's either
free or less costly.

As I say, these are just my thoughts at the moment, your mileage may differ.

Ray
 
Yes that may be true that WGA is to prevent casual copying but the ability
to casually is also the groundwork to possibly pirate multiple patched
copies

And I believe casual copying is probably just as or even more financially
damging to MSFT. And in the end it all simply amounts to theft.
 
[....]they'll just use something else that's either free or less costly.

True and that's a normal behavior and which is why the logic of "lost
revenue" isn't always true because those revenues might not happen in the
first place.
 
By the way, I should have stated this again - I am not against WGA nor
activation.

It's WGA N that most of us are questioning, especially for the reasons of
reducing piracy and cost saving.
 
They would want the apps for free also.

William said:
What if Microsoft gave Vista away to anyone who wants it for free and
lived of the profits from the applications it develops for Vista?
Click to expand...
 
That was me.

xfile said:
The only fallacy of that logic is - those revenues may or may not incur in
the first place, which is similar to the one used for - if I raise the
price to X level, I'd make Y additional revenues but it failed to include
those dropped revenues because of price increase.

Someone mentioned about "family discount", sort of volume license for
families or individuals using more than one computer which is a pretty
good idea. And there are many other brilliant ideas can be investigated
for either reducing casual copying (which is a form of using pirated
copies in my opinion) or the "officially" recognized using pirated copies.

For whatever reasons might be, it appears that the company took the most
dramatic measure instead of other possibilities. As for outsiders, such
as myself, we can only judge by what has been done.
Click to expand...
 
I think MS views piracy as distribution of cracked copies and casual copying
as misuse by consumers (for their own use). They pursue piracy through MS
Legal and casual copying through education of consumers and technologies
like activation and WGA. MS sees the reduction of casual copying as
primarily their responsibility rather than the consumers'.
 
now now Colin,
ya know I try to steer clear of this now,
are ya tryin to bait?
cuz by using SPP and WGA N, MSFT is DIRECTLY making it a consumer
responsibilty!
lol
but I digress-have at it with your rationale all ya want
 
N is a different animal because of all the litigation. I do think MS takes
the position that it is up to them to prevent casual copying with as little
loss of customer good will as possible. Pirates they have no sympathy for
at all.
 
The EULA, as it is written today, goes back to the 1990's, when most
families had only one computer, if they had one at all!

What Microsoft must begin to realize is that many/most families, that have
computers in their households at all, have multiple computers. The operating
system pricing and the EULA ***MUST*** be adjusted to recognize that fact.

I was in a big box store the other week and saw an edition of SpySweeper
that was for THREE computer installations. It was less than double the price
for a box that was for a single computer installation.

I think it was a tremendously smart move on Webroot's part to do this. I
bought a box and have not yet even opened it. I plan to install it on my two
adult son's computers, along with my own (that's right - they don't even
have to be in the same physical household) - when my present subscription
runs out in January.

Microsoft, **please** - TAKE A HINT!

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
I was in a big box store the other week and saw an edition of SpySweeper
that was for THREE computer installations. It was less than double the
price for a box that was for a single computer installation.
Click to expand...

Needless to say almost all major AV software now offer 3 computers for one
license fee.

I don't know if there is any thorough study for proving piracy will increase
price but what has been proven is that lack of competition (a.k.a. monopoly)
will definitely not lower price as we all witnessed and experienced.
 
Given that there is Linux and a huge market, obviously no other company
feels that at the price currently charged by Microsoft that investment in a
new operating system would be worth the risk. So far even Google hasn't
seen fit to enter the field. That makes it if anything a natural monopoly.
 
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