Microsoft targets software piracy while Windows 7 Ultimate sold on USB sticks
This week saw news that Chinese software pirates began selling Windows 7 on USB sticks while Microsoft busied itself launching a new anti-piracy initiative named Microsoft Consumer Action Day. The former proves that initiatives like the latter aren’t working.
Piracy has been a huge problem for Microsoft as far back as I can remember. The Windows operating system is the deserved market leader and greatly in demand in countries all around the world. But it’s also not the cheapest purchase to make, with new, boxed, off-the-shelf copies taking a considerable chunk of an average week’s wages.
In some countries the asking price isn’t a problem, but in other, poorer countries it most certainly is. Which is why pirated copies are traded in huge quantities in countries such as China, Mexico, and Argentina.
This has led Microsoft, already investing heavily in trying to stop piracy, to launch a new initiative simultaneously across 70 countries. Microsoft Consumer Action Day involves a range of education and enforcement endeavors designed to raise awareness of the dangers of piracy and stop pirates getting away with freely pirating Windows.
Legitimate consumers are actually helping this fight, with Microsoft receiving 150,000 voluntary reports over the last two years pertaining to software piracy.
David Finn, associate general counsel for Worldwide Anti-Piracy and Anti-Counterfeiting at Microsoft, said:
Consumers want action. Consumers who are duped by fraudulent software encounter viruses, lose personal information, risk having their identities stolen, and waste valuable time and money. Today’s announcement demonstrates our commitment to working with others, including our partners, government agencies and nongovernmental organizations, to protect people from the ill effects of counterfeit software.
Just a couple of days before this initiative was announced came news that Chinese pirates are now selling USB drives loaded with Windows 7 Ultimate on the black market. Ars Technica reports that the selling point is they work much faster than DVDs. The 8GB USB drives with Windows 7 preloaded on them are being sold for 98 yuan ($14), so it’s no wonder piracy is still rife in Asia.
What’s scary is how legitimate the product looks, with Microsoft and Windows 7 logos plastered all over the packaging. The pirates have even taken Steve Ballmer’s signature from the official Signature Edition Windows 7 given to beta testers and launch party organizers. It was earlier reported that Microsoft was considering selling Windows 7 on USB sticks but the effort never came to fruition. It looks like the pirates liked the idea though.
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December 6th, 2009
“Those suckers that bought Vista Ultimate, myself included, are screwed,” said yet another commenter. “There isn’t a chance in hell that I am paying $219 for what should really be Vista SP2. We were promised ‘extras’ which we never got, now we are being excluded from the pre-order special. Anyway even at $49, it is still too much to pay.”
The extras that commenter mentioned refer to “Ultimate Extras,” one of the main features Microsoft cited in the months leading up to the 2007 release of Vista Ultimate to distinguish the operating system from its lower-priced siblings. According to Microsoft’s marketing, Extras were to be “cutting-edge programs, innovative services and unique publications” that would be regularly offered only to users of Vista’s highest-priced edition.
But users soon began belittling the paltry number of add-ons Microsoft released and the company’s leisurely pace at providing them. Just five months after Vista was launched, critics started to complain.
Earlier this year, Microsoft dumped the feature, saying that it would instead focus on existing features in Windows 7 rather than again promise extras.
The furor over Vista Ultimate has even reached analysts’ ranks. In May, Michael Cherry of Directions on Microsoft urged Microsoft to give Vista Ultimate owners a free upgrade to Windows 7. “It would buy them a lot of good will, and I don’t think it would cost them much,” Cherry said at the time.
Some of the commenters in the latest Computerworld stories about Windows 7 echoed Cherry.
“I am running Vista Ultimate and feel ripped off by Microsoft because … [we] never received the extras we paid good money to get,” said “Hellfire” in a long comment. “The very least that they should do is offer a heavily-discounted upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate to those that have lost money by purchasing Vista Ultimate.”
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