Microsoft's piracy problem could grow
When it comes to software piracy, Microsoft may just be aiding the enemy.
Microsoft has been counting on gains against unlicensed software to boost revenue from the Windows unit, which accounts for a huge chunk of overall profits and sales. However, one of the company's own decisions could make its antipiracy battle more difficult.
With Windows Vista, Microsoft took an extremely tough stand on piracy. Computers that were not properly activated within a short period of time went into a virtually unusable state known as "reduced functionality mode."
In the newly released Service Pack 1, however, Microsoft is softening its stance somewhat. The reduced functionality mode is gone, and in its place, a series of warnings and visual indications that a computer is not running a genuine copy of Windows.
I would argue, though, that having an unusable copy of Windows is a far greater deterrent than having one that simply labels its user a pirate. Microsoft has maintained that the new approach will be just as effective and is more palatable to customers and partners. Color me skeptical.
But, will the changes automatically lead to an uptick in overall piracy rates? That's a more complicated question.
On its face, it would seem the answer would be a clear "yes."
However, there are a couple of other factors to keep in mind. First, Windows XP is pirated far more than Vista (at least 2 to 1, according to Microsoft). Also, Microsoft did close several notable hacks to its Vista protection scheme with SP1. So while the price for piracy is arguably lower, Microsoft has closed a few loopholes that let pirates bypass the security features altogether.
Time will tell whether Microsoft's technical changes will have an impact on the broader piracy issue. Enforcement is also key, with Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell noting that a couple of legal actions can make a big difference in any given quarter, suggesting true gains (or losses) from piracy require looking at a longer time horizon.
What is clear is that piracy rates remain a critical issue for Microsoft, which needs to continue growing its Windows revenue and profits to help fund its advertising battle against Google.
Microsoft had seemed to be making major headway against piracy, surprising analysts and itself in the September quarter by gaining 5 percentage points of growth through piracy reductions. Last quarter, though, Microsoft actually saw piracy rates head upward, reversing what had been a particularly positive trend for the company.
Microsoft now expects its gains for the year to be just a percentage point or two, though it believes it can continue to see improvements next year as well.
"Piracy is a tough battle and an area where we will need to continue investing," said Colleen Healy, Microsoft's general manager of investor relations.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
Don't get me wrong--I use Ubuntu and Debian at home, and I'm a big fan of Linux. But having to hear the Linux-otaku sound off at every single opportunity--whether or not it has a thing to do with Linux--is nothing more than an indication of fanaticism.
X (license for 5 copies of OS X at home) is $199. What's the cost
for 5 copies of full featured version of Vista? On top of that I spend
all this money for Vista "Business" version and can't watch a DVD!
The pirated user base is a large part of Microsoft's 90% OS share and they don't want risk losing, say, 20 of those 90%.
Don't say that "You are not going to switch!" when everyone knows that someone who says that is blowing a lot of hot air.
It will be fun to watch their inevitable fall. About as much as it was to watch their rise at IBM's expense.
Fun times, indeed.
If one can not get XP, then switching to MAC, Ubuntu, pirated copy of XP or getting Asus upcoming 9" Eee PC with XP preinstalled are the only choices left.
I'll be switching to 9" Eee PC and Ubuntu.
Then you debug the virtual machine, and watch for accessing that location. Now you have the code that checks that. If you neuter it, you have a winning card.
Now, it is more complicated than this, and no I am not someone who pirates (or even knows any pirates), but it is plainly obvious that this kind of procedure, especially with today's tools, makes it rather easy, and cheap, for a pirate to be unaffected by even the worst response of the program.
So? Only the casual pirates or the legitimate users suffer. Casual pirates can't afford it half the time anyway, or if they could, wouldn't buy it. So where is the loss? The users, not Microsoft's pocketbook. So this move is a better move, though it still needs a lot of reconsideration, as legitimate users still suffer.
Basically, MS hosed themselves with WGA and their marketshare is shrinking as a result.
Hell, I just did a upgrade install of Windows Vista, and for some reason, it no longer said my software was genuine after that!
Toshiba said "Use the recovery disks!" but that would blow away everything on my hard drive.... **** that, I am NOT doing that.
So I downloaded a crack for Vista and am now using it 'illegally' because of Microsoft's stupidity and Toshiba's stupidity.
One of my thoughts about why MS Vista might be slow is all the piracy checks. As a user/programmer of computers for some 28 years, I've always been an advocate of reducing complexity wherever possible. Computing will always be a trade-off of functionality versus time and each additional "feature" added is going to slow down the processing.
My suggestion, skip the piracy complexity being introduced and worry more about making a great product that people will be willing to buy. I bought Vista because I wanted to stay ahead of the curve and it has a lot of great improvements, but Microsoft should get back to basics and recall that the reason for having an OS is to provide device management services. Everything else is gravy.
I've been using Vista for over a year now on all of my machines at home (Count em' 5 in all) and no problems whatsoever. That's why I know this is all a bunch hooey spread by Appleheads, OpenSourcers and other anti-Microsoft nimrods.
BTW I'm a registered Republican I just found the liberal comment just misguided enough to be squashed so I pointed out the Bush Administration thing.
I also have an Intel Core 2 Duo PC, I built from scratch running XP. I had Vista on it for about three weeks and needlessly to say it can't top XP's speed and useability. Its very very sluggish as compared to XP and it doesn't work well with my older peripherals. Lets just say the experience has left me unimpressed to say the least. So I wiped the hardrive and did a clean install of XP.
I only use Vista on my Macbook when I have to.
I'm guessing your not a hardcore user like me and you probably only use those machines with a light workload. I just dont see how you can manage it.
Using Vista as my main OS is just out of the question. I just don't know where Microsoft is going with it.
And don't get me started on Ballmer's admitting Vista is a dud. Because I feel like I've just been ripped off a couple of hundred. You know?
looked back. Yes I still use MS Office - why - because I don't hate
Microsoft - I admire Microsoft and Bill Gates - and Office is the
hands-down best suite on the market.
My favourite Windows OS was NT 3.51 - now that was STABLE - a
true work of art. And XP not bad, although I reboot at least once a
day as resources disappear.
But OS-X Leopard is amazing - and Stable!!
I have to reboot my XP system maybe, MAYBE, once a month and that's if I'm doing something really stupid like, oh, I don't know, visiting web sites and running software that I shouldn't be visiting or running . . .
AAAAAAHHHHHH!
It is my contention that Windows originally got to where it is today because it was so easy to simply copy Windows 3.1 (and MS-DOS) and pass it around. Without that vast copy-fest, Microsoft would've never gotten a fraction of the user base it has now.
Of course, now that they're really huge, they're casting about for ways to protect what they have. selling new customers is a wash, because there are a LOT of defections away from Windows and towards Apple and Linux.
So... they go after the hordes who pirated Windows. I say they should stop playing nice and get serious about it... encrypt the entire hard disk with a 4096-bit SHA-1 algorithm, and leave only a pop-up window indicating that the user should call Microsoft in order to get the encryption passphrase. The caller can either prove they bought it legit, or they can cough up a credit-card number to get the passphrase and a legit license key.
That should prove once and for all if this whole thing about piracy is really the reason why MSFT is slipping or not.
/P
Quite sad that the recording tells you to call back between 8:30 AM and 6:30 PM Monday through Friday.
:)
"Personally, I would hope that Microsoft would skip the whole 'reduced functionality mode' and simply encrypt and lock all local hard disk partitions within reach - including all major filesystems that are not NTFS or FAT32 (such as HFS, ext2/3, etc). "
Are you saying you would advocate an-anti piracy scheme by Microsoft that would intentionally disable/lock out Linux and Macintosh file systems? Whatever for? I thought you were a supporter of these operating systems?
I think I must have misunderstood you. I read the rest of your comments but they only indicate you would support the deliberate disabling of other file systems by Microsoft. That seems very contradictory to your normal comments and viewpoints.
4096 bit RSA would be useless as RSA really slow and as efficient as a 128 bit AES for this purpose
Just being technical
There are people that I know who have bought new computers with Vista, then reformatted the harddisk and installed a unlicensed copy of Windows XP because they can't stand Vista. This is the real problem facing Microsoft. What do you do when nobody wants your product? The way that I see it, you have two options. Make your product better or fold. The consumer votes with their wallet, and the latest financial results from Microsoft reflect that. When Microsoft wakes up and realizes this fact, it will probably be too late. And don't forget that people are migrating to Apple and Linux as well.
"Eventually, all companies will be replaced." - Bill Gates.
> Personally I'll write Vista off as another Windows ME (which is to
> say its crap) and wait to see what Windows 7 looks like.
my critique....
M$ has 25 years of writing crap, why blame Vista now? lol
- Pirates bring competition right?
- by JCPayne April 28, 2008 9:48 AM PDT
- ???
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