Microsoft asks BANGLADESH to end piracy :o

[X-Istence]

Because for some people, time might be more valuable than money?
A company, for example, might have to invest a lot of time and money in re-training employees to deploy, administer and use a UNIX based server, and they might lose productivity in the process. When Windows is the most dominant operating system in the world, it's reasonable to assume that most people are already familiar with it. There are reasons companies choose the products they do. It's not like Microsoft holds them at gunpoint and forces them to pick a Microsoft solution over an open-source one now, is it?

Just because people are more familiar with it is not a reason to follow it, but it is the companies decision.

One thing though is that retraining personal is a one time thing, it is a one time dip in productivity and a one time spending to get them trained.

Whereas if you keep buying from Microsoft you will have to keep paying that $1000 every single 2 or 3 years when Microsoft comes out with another server edition.

And indeed it is not true that Microsoft holds them at gun-point. It is the other way around, companies hold Microsoft at gunpoint to give them cheaper deals by dropping Linux in some negotiations with them. This way they get their software cheap.

One thing i do think has to be changed, and that is in public schooling systems. Alternatives have to be considered, currently in NJ nothing will enter the classroom besides Windows XP. Server which has been hacked several times in the last month is running IIS 6.0 and everything is Windows based, except the Mac lab used in photography, which BTW is not even connected to the net in fear of having them infected by a virus. But I digress.

Ending piracy in third world countries is also not going to happen any time soon. Not at least until Microsoft starts selling copies of their Windows XP at a price that they can actually afford. I am personally well off, as is my entire family. We live in a big house and all, but even we will not drop $200 for an OS. Considering the fact that for $200 more we can have an entire PC including Windows XP. Sure I have pirated their software in the past, now? No. But I can certainly see where the people in Bangladesh are coming from, as well as the people in Asia in general. Those people don't even have money, which is quite a difference.

Alternatives are out there, but most of them are in English and ahve poor localizations available. Or the localizations are outdated. This is the reason why the piracy is also so high. It is because Microsoft translated and rewrote the help files and other stuff so that the people in a certain area could read and use the OS. Linux is mainly based around English, as are a lot of other Open Source projects.

X-Istence

P.S. you Microsoft haters:

sed "/Microsoft/s//M$/"

 

[melon]

IMO, the biggest problem is that software is truly priced for business use. Sure, we have educational software (and some of it is still so expensive that I don't know how any students can actually afford it), but we don't have any "home software," for the most part. But, to be fair, where do you draw the line between "home use" and "commercial use"? Why would anyone want to buy software that you can't make any money off of?

Still, though, I think this is how piracy could be addressed. I think that many software pirates in the Western world, at least, might genuinely want to buy software, but it's price prohibitive. This is often why I disagree with these assumptions that pirated software is automatically lost revenue. No, I tend to think that they wouldn't have received the revenue at all, for the most part. Now businesses? They have no excuse for piracy and should continue to be pursued as aggressively as they are.

Melon

 

[jimi_81]

i agree that software is priced for business use.
but why wouldnt it be?

i dont know too much about Bangladesh...
but i think piracy can help them, just as it has helped us.

If piracy didnt exist:
i wouldnt have the computer i have now
i wouldnt have purchased Halflife 2.
i would be like my parents:
-pressing OK instead of double clicking
-thinking Word, Excel and Wordperfect are pinnacle
-taking a virus/spyware-ridden computer to Futureshop to be fixed for $100/hr

 

[NetRyder]

How much lower should XP be priced at? I saw an ad in the newspaper today (CircuitCity, I think) that was selling a copy of XP Home upgrade for $99. Now most people would already have a previous version of Windows that they bought earlier, or that came preloaded on their brand-name machines (the latter being more prevalent among non-techies). The average home user doesn't need XP Pro, and the $1000 figure that has been thrown out many times in this thread is the cost of Server 2003, which is most certainly meant ONLY for commercial purposes.

Just because people are more familiar with it is not a reason to follow it, but it is the companies decision.

One thing though is that retraining personal is a one time thing, it is a one time dip in productivity and a one time spending to get them trained.

Whereas if you keep buying from Microsoft you will have to keep paying that $1000 every single 2 or 3 years when Microsoft comes out with another server edition.

Sure, I absolutely agree. If a company thinks that an open-source alternative works better for them, that's certainly the route that they should take. No doubt about it. Still, there must be a reason why a huge number of them are still sticking to Microsoft solutions, despite the cost?

Besides, companies don't have to upgrade everytime a new OS comes out unless there is really a need for it. There were so many companies out there that were still running NT systems until recently. Even if they paid $1000 for it, I'm sure they got their money's worth if the OS served them well for so many years.

Ending piracy in third world countries is also not going to happen any time soon. Not at least until Microsoft starts selling copies of their Windows XP at a price that they can actually afford.

Again, I'm highly doubtful that this approach would actually work. As per the news story posted, people in Bangladesh can get copies of XP on the streets for less than a dollar. We certainly can't expect Microsoft to sell licensed versions of their OS that cheap now, can we?
And if people are struggling to make two ends meet, they're bound to go for the cheaper alternative, which will always be down the pirated route.

P.S. you Microsoft haters:
sed "/Microsoft/s//M$/"

Good one.

 

[X-Istence]

How much lower should XP be priced at? I saw an ad in the newspaper today (CircuitCity, I think) that was selling a copy of XP Home upgrade for $99. Now most people would already have a previous version of Windows that they bought earlier, or that came preloaded on their brand-name machines (the latter being more prevalent among non-techies). The average home user doesn't need XP Pro, and the $1000 figure that has been thrown out many times in this thread is the cost of Server 2003, which is most certainly meant ONLY for commercial purposes.

The upgrade does not allow for a clean wipe of the hard drive, or at least, not last time i checked UNLESS one has the origional CD for one of the other OS's (Windows 98, ME, 2000). Which makes it a lot less effective as the crud that can get stuck behind from one of the older Windows installs can cause a lot of trouble.

Sure, I absolutely agree. If a company thinks that an open-source alternative works better for them, that's certainly the route that they should take. No doubt about it. Still, there must be a reason why a huge number of them are still sticking to Microsoft solutions, despite the cost?

Microsoft is providing techs at low costs to do all the work . At roche, the pharma company my dad works at, they bought new licenses for everything, and went from Windows NT to Windows XP. Microsoft sent in a team of techs to set it all up as they wanted for them. The staff got retrained for free at Microsoft's expense.

But yet they have had downtimes that lasted over 2 days. As in the entire company was down, nothing worked anymore. Granted, the switch was not to well prepared and stuff was rolled out to fast, but still. What I think i am trying to point out is the fact that downtime seems to not matter that much, so a switch to Open Source would have succeeded as well. Would have had the same downtime, Novell/IBM have the support covered, and training is not that hard either. Overall, the costs would have been the same.

Besides, companies don't have to upgrade everytime a new OS comes out unless there is really a need for it. There were so many companies out there that were still running NT systems until recently. Even if they paid $1000 for it, I'm sure they got their money's worth if the OS served them well for so many years.

That is true, however most companies buy licenses that include the free upgrades after a while. Also yes, at $1000 it might have been their money's worth, but a one time payment of $5,000 and a server that has a lot less downtime compared to the Windows solution could have made the company $50,000 more profit (hypethetical (sp)). The Windows NT solution was rock solid at Roche, then Windows XP with Windows 2003 server came in, and since then the network has had more ups and downs than when Windows NT was introduced. Sure, this is just one company, but considering they are a huge company it is a bad thing. I am not bashing Microsoft here, I think it would have been a hell hole trying to get it all to work again, but for the amount of money they spent, it should have had less. Note: The workstations stay up, just the data share server goes down, together with the AD, exchange and all other services that are tied together.

It is hurting productivity, sometimes my dad can come home at 2 in the afternoon as the server has been down the entire morning and there is nothing left to do. All the meetings have been canceled as documents and presentations can't be retrieved. He has to make this up later though, by staying late. And the later you stay the more tired you are, the less qaulity work you will have.

Again, I'm highly doubtful that this approach would actually work. As per the news story posted, people in Bangladesh can get copies of XP on the streets for less than a dollar. We certainly can't expect Microsoft to sell licensed versions of their OS that cheap now, can we?
And if people are struggling to make two ends meet, they're bound to go for the cheaper alternative, which will always be down the pirated route.

No, but at $20 a piece, it would not be that bad. Agreed, Microsoft would not make it $1. What does this mean? Well, i think the average person would want to buy a legal version, i know i do, if they would just price it right. Microsoft has to be more open to other markets and not try to push the price they can push in the US onto other people. In asia they are not getting to good of a response cause of what Ballmer said, and also, because they are trying to muscle themselves into the country, which IMHO is bad thinking.

Good one.

Ah yes, seen that comic as well. Think of it everytime i see another [l]user use M$. Just thought i should appeal to both the people that know how to write Microsoft and the people that prefer to read about M{DOLLAR-SIGN}

X-Istence

for you Microsoft haters:

sed "/Microsoft/s//M$/"

use the above sed expression on your Linux boxen, or CYGWIN on your pirated Windows XP .

 

[NetRyder]

Oh man, when did this turn into a Microsoft vs. open-source discussion? (Yeah, I'm equally responsible for it ). Don't get me wrong here. As I said earlier, I have absolutely nothing against open-source alternatives. 80% of the software I personally use is actually free or open-source.

Anyway, the original point I was trying to make is that you really can't blame only MS for cracking down on pirated software vendors. Like any other commercial software company, they're working for profits, and they will continue to sell software at whatever price they can, just like anyone else. They just get all the bad press because they're the biggest fish in the pond, although there are others who are equally "guilty" of overpricing software, that's all.

 

[melon]

I guess I should clarify. I was referring to other software (i.e., anything with "Adobe" or "Macromedia" in it, not to mention Microsoft Office). Windows XP, in itself, is priced appropriately for the Western world.

Melon

 

[melon]

i agree that software is priced for business use.
but why wouldnt it be?

Because the vast majority of us are not businesses or students, that's why.

Melon

 

[Elektro Slime]

hmm..... a thread were people are actually serious, someone should sticky this!

 

[delta4s]

never knew this would cause this big a debate I just found it funny. I'm a hardcore software pirate myself, though I do try to use Linux a lot too.

 

[Elektro Slime]

good for you delta4s , that makes two of us! lol.
u know in India its really hard to actually find legit software, maybe that's another reason for the boom in piracy rates......

 

[delta4s]

are you from India too ? you do find the software in stores but its priced way too high. Maybe I'd buy it if there were cheaper Indian versions like the books.

 

[delta4s]

besides, M$ isnt all that bad - http://in.rediff.com/money/2004/dec/14spec.htm

 

[Elektro Slime]

no m8 im not from india, ive been there a few times tho, have some relatives there.
but whenever i go there i always buy games n stuff for like 60 rupess! i also get some textbooks from there...

 

[delta4s]

yeah, in the smaller cities in India, software is available for even less (~ $1) , and textbooks are usually a tenth of the price for which they sell in Europe or North America.

 

[Elektro Slime]

i no! aint it great!
but the textbooks are legit, they are usually b&w versions on cheaper paper but fully authorised by the publishers.....

 

[delta4s]

yeah i was wondering if they could have Eastern Economy Editions of their software too

 

[Elektro Slime]

haha that would be nice, BTW FYI unlike M$ with ther uber high prices some companies are actually going in the right direction, instead of filling lawsuits like crazy the people at Creative are taking the pirates and counterfiets head on. In places like taiwan u they were selling fake Creative products at the prices as the genuine ones , wat creative did was to start manufacturing ther own low priced items and sold at a lower price......they really are quite........creative!

 

[NetRyder]

Creative sells software?

 

[delta4s]

must be the hardware