BeerFiles is a sometimes irreverent blog concerning all things to do with IT, technology, people and the media from the point of view of a hard boiled technology journalist and commentator. Stan has been in the IT game for about a quarter of a century. He has seen and written about the rise and fall of more than a few IT players and made many friends, some of whom he has even crossed swords with on occasions. Everything in this blog is purely Stan’s opinion so if you agree, wish to expand upon, correct a post or tell Stan he’s a clueless know nothing, please feel free.

Apple and Microsoft: a tale of two piracy fighters

by Stan Beer

Monday, 16 October 2006

Page 3 of 3 Why are these risky plays? As far as prices are concerned, Apple CEO Jobs hit the nail on the head when he said, "If you want to stop piracy, the way to stop it is by competing with it, by offering a better product at a fair price." Many would argue that raising Windows to prices as high as hardware in some cases is not a fair price. In the affluent West, most people will pay it but in the second and third worlds, this will be an issue. One of the reasons Microsoft grew into the most successful IT company of all time, and in the process nearly put Apple out of business, is that it originally offered users a reasonably priced product and the freedom to choose their hardware supplier. As the cost of hardware has dropped, Microsoft has increased its prices to the point where it is no longer reasonably priced. As far as SPP is concerned, it will certainly stop the pirate users but it will also stop many of them from buying legitimate copies of Windows some time in the future because it will force them to look for free alternatives in the present such as Linux. It will also create bad feeling amongst legitimate users. We have in the past been criticised by some readers for occasionally basing stories on our own polls. However, we decided to let a poll run for about one week asking the question: Is the Vista Software Protection Program fair to users? Of the 1312 responses, 1033 answered no (78.7%) and 279 answered yes (21.3%). Admittedly it's hard to tell from polls like this whether the feeling is really that strong among users. However, it goes without saying that many people do not like the prospect of being constantly policed by a vendor to which they've already paid good money. Maybe Microsoft believes that all this will not matter. If so, it may find that it has lost touch with its users.{moscomment} Tags See All Tags Apple  Microsoft  Software  Vista  Windows  Powered By Joomla Tags Please enable JavaScript in your browser to post your comment! << First page <   1 2 3 Next page > Last page - Post your comment >>

 

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