Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: > My own impression is that Microsoft and other companies have > generally shot themselves in the foot by imposing strictly > enforceable licensing procedures. It used to be that the most widely > "pirated" software was Microsoft operating systems and office > software. And the company was also the largest and most profitable. > (Maybe still is.) But I know for a fact that many users started with > Microsoft software copied from a friends disks, and then, later, came > in out of the cold. And I'm sure that story was repeated over and > over. Essentially, Microsoft had a "trial" distribution network that > it did not have to pay a penny for.
I agree with this. I also think that another way MS and others have shot themselves in the foot is by "gentrifying" their software through increasing the prices over time. I see this as nothing but greed and/or inefficiency. There's no real reason to charge more for a later version than a previous version. It's true that the new version does more than the old version, and therefore requires more coding. But it's not like they had to go back and rewrite the product from scratch for each version. They reuse much of the code from the older version and add to it for the new version. AutoCAD, Protel, Photoshop, MS Office, MS Access - these are just some of the software products that have gentrified themselves out of their original markets. As for me, I still use older versions of these products (well, I don't use Photoshop) because they still work for me. But it is doubtful I would choose to buy these overpriced products if I were just now entering the computerized workplace. These companies are so scared of piracy of their products. The one thing they could do to reduce piracy is to lower the prices. For example, if MS priced MS Office with Access for $39 for the download version, $49 for the bookshelf version, they would greatly reduce piracy. And if MS sold XP Pro for $39 for a boxed retail copy, there would be much less interest in Linux. But $399 for Vista Ultimate - forget it! > I'm really not sure which effect is stronger, but, as I said, if > Microsoft lost as much to piracy as they have claimed, how in the > world did they manage to be so profitable? In fact, those "losses" > were, I'd assume, based on an assumption that all the unlicensed > users would have purchased instead, which is highly unlikely. Yeah, by that kind of thinking, I save a quarter of a millions dollars *every day* by not buying a new Rolls Royce each morning. Best regards, Ivan Baggett Bagotronix Inc. website: www.bagotronix.com ____________________________________________________________ You are subscribed to the PEDA discussion forum To Post messages: mailto:[email protected] Unsubscribe and Other Options: http://techservinc.com/mailman/listinfo/peda_techservinc.com Browse or Search Old Archives (2001-2004): http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] Browse or Search Current Archives (2004-Current): http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
