Microsoft launches enterprise antipiracy program

[Daniel ~]

Written by Daniel
Wednesday, 03 October 2007

MS encourges the adoption of Linux by Intiateing "Microsoft enterprise antipiracy program" to help customers decide upon their complience/upgrade path...

Microsoft launches enterprise antipiracy program
Get Genuine Windows Agreement aims to plug a hole in Microsoft's antipiracy efforts and targets large customers that need to 'get legal'
By Gregg Keizer, Computerworld, InfoWorld
October 03, 2007

Front Page

[Samuknow]

Blah Blah Blah....

These people are running around gathering money like the ship is sinking. I am so sick of MS i could puke.

[Gizmo]

Remember when buying software was simple? You bought a copy of a program, loaded it on a machine.

1 program, 1 machine. Simple.

Need to move it to a different machine? Fine. Uninstall it on the old machine, install it on the new machine. Simple.

Want a volume discount because you are buying 2,000 copies? Fine. Same rules as above apply. Simple.

Why isn't it still that simple?

[Daniel ~]

'ol Norton, before the buyout, I bought every Utilities and Anti-virus upgrade! LOL Why? Because when I didn't like something, I'd just call them up and Say It's not much of an upgrade is it?
They would then say OK we are sending you your money back... But what do I do with the disk I'd say.

"Give it to your local school library or church and we be cool."

I gave a LOT of disks to a lot of folks who were delighted to get them... it was a joy! ":O}

Now... buy software, hire a lawyer to defend your use of it!

[dsio]

What is the definition of a new machine?

A new CPU?

New RAM?

New hard disk?

New motherboard?

What combination constitutes a new computer?

If I upgrade half the parts now, and half the parts later, does that count as the same computer?

If you buy an OEM computer with XP license, and then completely upgrade it, are you then required to buy a new license?

If this is so, then all of the Windows XP copies I have in use are illegal, perhaps with the exception of one. They were all payed for in full, but would no longer be valid.

[Samuknow]

If I bought it I should own it. They don't tell you how to use a car or any other thing I pay for when you buy it. Why should I be told how to use software?

[Daniel ~]

How did we ever get here? Letting MS dictate how we choose to live in OUR world?
"No" is such a lovely word!
"All human freedom is a based upon inhibition."
I-Ching
If we can't say no, to ourselves and to our world, we have no freedom.

[Gizmo]

The fundamental problem here (aside from basic greed) is very simple; market saturation. It's very easy to be generous when you know that there are lots of people out there who haven't bought your product yet. However, once you've saturated your market, it becomes harder to maintain your profit and income levels without coming up with something new.

The commercial software market is largely stagnant. The big players are trying to find ways to squeeze more money out of the same old crap, rather than really innovate and come up with truly new products. Software is largely a 'commodity' in the sense that pretty much everyone who needs an application to do 'x' already has it in some form ranging from free to paid-for.

In that kind of market, there are really only two ways to make money:

• Provide superior customer service. If the market segment you service needs a lot of customer support, this works, but it requires that you work, too, and a lot more than you may be used to.
• Come up with an innovative product that no-one else has. This is often even harder than providing superior customer service, because now you have to be CREATIVE. Creative people tend to be expensive to hire and retain. In addition, you have to have a management structure that encourages creativity; a trait which most large companies lack.

[Daniel ~]

And I agree, that's all on them. But what about us? We can stop this. Maybe not for others, but for ourselves at lest, we can stop MS in her blood drenched tracks. We can, one by one just say no to everything MS does buys or sells.

We just have to want to, in spite of the toys we may lose...

[Gizmo]

Originally Posted by Daniel ~

But what about us? We can stop this. Maybe not for others, but for ourselves at lest, we can stop MS in her blood drenched tracks. We can, one by one just say no to everything MS does buys or sells.

Oh, absolutely. I wasn't attempting to excuse their behavior; their behavior is simply a reflection of us. If we weren't buying the crap they keep pushing, they'd be forced to provide us with something that actually had value (or go out of business; either way, problem solved).

[Daniel ~]

Sorry Gizmo, I know that! I didn't mean to drill ya, just genal kibitzing.":O}

[dsio]

The customer service model is the one used by most open source companies. Things like RHEL, Virtuozzo, Asterisk, Virtualmin, Nagios and many others are free if you want them, but you install and maintain it yourself. For a nominal fee, you can get the companies to provide full 24/7 support and assitance, and even perform some tasks like upgrading for you (Virtuozzo for example will upgrade your OS and Virtualmin for about $150, which is very good when its a difficult job ~8 hours for someone that doesn't do it for a living).

[Daniel ~]

So! Who wants to sign a no MS pledge!? LOL

[dsio]

I've just gotten off the phone with a Microsoft representitive after a discussion regarding my Windows Vista copy, which until now, I had been using under a Linux HVM to perform browser testing and other operations.

Vista Business is supposefly ok to use as a virtualized guest OS, while home isn't, but because its an OEM copy, it has to be used on this laptop only, while ive been using it.. on top of another OS on the laptop.

[Daniel ~]

You are not allowed any advantage you have not specifically paid for...or you will have to pay for it again. Driven mad by money...these guys!! These poor guys!

A Wasteland of human experience...