Genuine Microsoft

[silver_vibe]

I found this interesting: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4717417.stm

[silver_vibe]

I actually believe this move may hurt Microsoft. I have always believed Microsoft started dominating because of individuals pirating legal purchases made by their company. In other words, people were "borrowing" company software for their home. They got used to it, shared it with their colleges who in turn would buy a 30 legal copies for that business. If my PC didn't come with Word and XP Pro, I certanly would not shell out $500 to get them. I wonder what will happen if Microsoft pushes home users to Linux, FireFox, and OpenOffice. I know I'm considering it for my next personal machine...and I decide what applications 50 PCs run at work (maybe I'll come to realize we don't need Microsoft at work).I also didn't think THAT many people pirated the OS. Most prebuilt machines come with a legal copy of Windows. I guess it only affects people that build theirown machines or are upgrading a machine...but with the cost of decent PCs around $500, who could really justify buying XP for over $100 just to run it on an outdated PC?

[Toasted7]

Genuine Piracy... that should be a t-shirt.

[northvibe]

Here is the thing, the pirated windows xp pro that is out on the internet, is a corporate version and not the retail. Here is the thing the corporate version doesnt need to be "verified" to work or registered SO the one problem is that you cannot install services packs with out modifying the cd key to a retail one so the service pack thinks its retail. THUS having a full xp pro OS with out having to verify.now this "verify thing" is already on their site, but is a option. I've known ppl who run corp and they verified their xp and it worked great. soo M$ is actually doing that for no reason as its easily bypassed...stupid stupid M$. piracy will never be able to be stopped, with human writen code there will be flaws no matter what. A good example is Mac OS. there is no cd key no verifying yet ppl buy it because its fairly cheap and a great os.

[silver_vibe]

Quote, originally posted by northvibe »...piracy will never be able to be stopped, with human writen code there will be flaws no matter what...Requiring an internet connection could really put a damper on it. Norton System Works 2005 will allow 3 installs/verifications and then it fails. So it doesn't matter who has the disk because it won't run.I know there will always be someone that cracks the code and distributes the software check free, but people that install cracks are begging for a virus.

[ragingfish]

Hate to say it, but...The public will find a way around it.

[ragingfish]

Quote, originally posted by northvibe »A good example is Mac OS. there is no cd key no verifying yet ppl buy it because its fairly cheap and a great os.What a novel concept! Cheap, but GOOD!

[joatmon]

stop by any decent sized college, and for $10 plus a six pack you can find someone who will buy you a copy of the latest version of windows from their bookstore. MS office might cost you $15 plus tip. not much point in bothering with pirating it to avoid these low costs, unless you are trying to make some ineffective and unseen protest statement.

[silver_vibe]

Quote, originally posted by joatmon »stop by any decent sized college, and for $10 plus a six pack you can find someone who will buy you a copy of the latest version of windows from their bookstore. MS office might cost you $15 plus tip. not much point in bothering with pirating it to avoid these low costs, unless you are trying to make some ineffective and unseen protest statement.XP Pro (full) is still $300 at the U.C.L.A. bookstore. $100 for the XP Pro upgrade. I guess they don't have a student edition for the OS.

[joatmon]

odd, it was $10 at the UMBC bookstore for XP pro full. I stand corrected, I guess not every college has such a deal.

[Kari]

The $10-$15 ones are available under a licensing agreement with the college where the university is basically paying the full cost of the licenses for its students. They pay millions of dollars to M$, then offer the software for those cheap prices to the students and sometimes the faculty and staff. The agreement Miami University used to have allowed your license to carry over even after you left the university, but the new agreement apparently doesn't allow that. Some colleges do this and some don't, though. Miami does, and I bought a copy of Office while I was there for a summer session in 2000 for about $12. ETSU didn't, unless you were in the computer science department, in which case you could buy developer software for that price, plus XP Pro.

[ColonelPanic]

Quote, originally posted by silver_vibe »I actually believe this move may hurt Microsoft. I certainly hope so! A guy can dream! My thoughts: M$ did not get to where they are today with 90+% market share by people buying their crap legally! No way, no how. With the price they're charging for their software, they're bringing this on themselves. People don't want to pay $500 or whatever just so they can write a letter, fill out a spreadsheet, have that stupid (removed) paperclip talk to them all the friggin' time, etc. etc. etc. M$ fails to realize that they are part of the problem. It's not just the h4x0rs or w4r3z or kiddies or whatever out on the interweb that are causing their profits to go down the crapper. They need to understand that there is this concept out there called "bang for your buck." Looking at their site, a non-upgrade version of XPee pro is $299, the upgrade is $199. That's ludicrous! Spending $299 on an OS that only comes with crap like paint, notepad, media player, internet exploiter, etc... (removed), mate? And hey, would you like to do something useful with your Winblows box? Oh, that will be another $499 on top of the $299 you just paid. Ludicrous turns into absof'inlutely ludicrous!! Who is going to pay those prices?I can snag a copy of *insert Linux distro here* and get so much more for free. And hell, I'll pimp my beloved SuSE for a sec to compare... I can purchase a version of SuSE Linux for $100 or less. And I do purchase a retail boxed version of SuSE Linux twice a year when the new version comes out. Paying for free software, you say? Sure! But it's well worth it considering what you get for what little you spend. What can I do with it? Let's see - countless different desktop environments to choose from, several complete office suites (which includes Open Office, which will work with the M$ formats,) at least half a dozen web browsers and e-mail clients, multimedia apps, powerful image editing tools... Then on the geeky side - web servers, FTP servers, development tools, etc. etc. etc. etc. Far too much to count, really.Even MacOS is a splended deal in comparison to Windows... It won't give you a (removed) load of stuff like a Linux distro would, but it's still a better deal than Windows coul dever dream of being.My point: Windows, and Microsoft software in general is beyond a rotten deal unless you're able to pick up the "student editions" for $10 or so. They aren't alone at being guilty for charging excessively for software though - I will give them that. Look at some of the other companies pricing on their premium products and they're just as bad. Once again, that leads to piracy.If the companies would charge less for this crap, bringing the pricing down to sensible levels where folks who aren't so well off can afford, the company won't have to sit around griping that they're getting ripped off all the time. Piracy will continue, it's been around since the beginning of computing, but I think more folks would be willing to pay for the stuff if they can actually afford it.

[redlava]

Aawwwhhh!Poor Microsoft, losing Billions of dollars. It makes a little piece of me die on the inside.

[wes_517]

Back when I lived in Seattle I had a manager that useto work at Microsoft... They knew people pirated their software, they didn't care. They don't care much if one or two people go and pirate the software. they aren't using something else. He also said that 80-90% of pirated copies came from 4-5 keys, which i always thought was just bizarre... but they then just blocked those keys from AUTOMATIC updates. you could still get the network install updates.What they are more concerned about is large scale pirating. people getting copies of the OS and selling them to 100-1000 people for $5 each. These are the people they are trying to go after, and thus you file the report and say where you got it, then you get a free copy of a legit one. It's just not worth the man power and bad PR to really go after someone that took a corp copy home and installed it.As far as how rampant it is, typically the older you get, the less you pirate stuff since you have quite a lot more to lose. you're a college kid on your own, it's not such a big deal, but when you're invested in your career, spouse and kids, then get busted for large amounts of money, then your in quite a bit more trouble.

[silver_vibe]

Quote, originally posted by wes_517 »As far as how rampant it is, typically the older you get, the less you pirate stuff since you have quite a lot more to lose. you're a college kid on your own, it's not such a big deal, but when you're invested in your career, spouse and kids, then get busted for large amounts of money, then your in quite a bit more trouble.I agree 100% - that is exactly why many people I know stopped downloading MP3s.

[Toasted7]

I agree with Mike... if "they" put up something to try to stop everyone from pirating software... "they" will get around it... guaranteed!**not really a guarantee, but pretty d@$n close*

[northvibe]

AH my window was closed after i typed everything mac osX is bsd based so there are a TON of free apps made for it, and widgets are freaking SWEET. oh MS, you can do it the cheap way and buy the upgrade (which is actually the normal full version it just requires a older windows for verification) so if you have like a win 98 cd, ME or maybe 2k then you just put that in click yes then eject and install xp as usual. as for pirating windows...MS said xp would be unpiratable or something..yea no, just because it has to authenticate? they hacked it before XP was even released for the public to purchase. or Half Life 2 was hacked so it can be played without connecting to steam to play.