Windows Pirates Go On Strike Against Microsoft

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This has to be a Wow moment. I mean, what else would you call it, when Windows pirates go on strike against Microsoft because the Redmond Company has threatened to take measures against the illegal use of its software products? This is the case in India where Microsoft's anti-piracy initiatives have done nothing but generate protests from local computer dealers.

In an effort to reduce piracy in the western Indian state of Gujarat, Microsoft has presented 13 local computer dealers with copyright infringement notices. The Redmond Company did so in an attempt to convince the dealers to cease installing pirated copies of Windows on computers. However, Microsoft's action failed to fall through with the Indian counterfeiters. Moreover, Microsoft is not the target of protests as
the computer dealers want the company to renounce its anti-piracy claims.

The protests are local, but the Gujarat dealers hope that their pro-pirary initiative will gain momentum. Bharat Randeri, president of the South Gujarat Information Technologists Association (SITA) disputed Microsoft's claims of computer dealers handling pirated Windows copies. Randeri made it clear that the official policies of dealers steer right clear of bootlegged software products, and stated that pirated variants of Windows are not installed on the computers sold.

Still, this is largely a question of nuance. As a matter of fact, Randeri then admitted that if customers request the installation of pirated materials on their newly acquired machines, the dealers won't fight it. Randeri argued that pirated software is so popular due to the low prices associated with it.

"We have been approached by dealers in other states who are also being harassed by Microsoft. If Microsoft does not cooperate, we will tell our dealers to migrate to Linux," he threatened as cited by InfoWorld. "We support the use of legal software, but we cannot do anything if the customer does not want it because it is too costly. Microsoft should bring down the price of its software and offer better support."​
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Source: Softpedia
 
Letter to M$

dear Billu,

reduce the price of your crap OS which is only needed to play 'mind sweeper', watching time, countless clicking on START..... not even good enough to hide 'p' stuffs :P

You made XBOX to bite PS2, but failed like Indian-Cricket team in WC. Now made XBOX 360 but still Xbox 360: 61 per cent failure rate!!! to capture the gaming market, bigger than the 'Hollywood'.

Reduce your OS's price by removing those fancy boxes, and sell them at equal price to that of a pirated CD/DVD prices..... then you can also capture the US$240-million Piracy market. After all, its also a market :hap2:

Thanks for reading.... :ohyeah:
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Uhh, they already have captured the piracy market i thought.

They have to be the most pirated OS on the planet.
 
I dont know why no one says so but piracy is good for our nation. I don't see any reason in shelling out thousands for just a DVD in fancy packing. They spend little to nothing for customising products for india and then they price their products ridiculously....why should we send the money to the US ...it will help us save some foreign exchange (it appears to be so, I am no economic expert though).....
 
Neotheone said:
I dont know why no one says so but piracy is good for our nation. I don't see any reason in shelling out thousands for just a DVD in fancy packing.
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Thousands of software engineers work for sleepless hours. Many more are hired newly for the job. All of them work almost 24/7 when the month and hour of D day i.e the release is approaching. If ppl dont buy those dvds or cds, hundreds loose their jobs, Many of the guys wont know what to do as software is the sole thing that they know. If you were one of those guys who lost ur job and ur future because of some idiot's decision to copy the actual one and sell it for dirt cheap ( coz he doesn't know the efforts involved ) will u keep quiet? You should think twice before saying anything like that.

I am not saying i use all original versions and never use any pirated stuff at all. But I always know that it is not right and will never support such statements
 
yes they must reduce prices of the software....it is a very good option

and surised to see such a bold initiative by the indian ppl... great work... proud to be an indian....

there is nothing wrong in what he has said... if the prices are too high.. then ppl will definately prefer pirated products.....

look at what moser baer did to the movie disk piracy in india....
they reduced the rates to equal the pirated disk rates and just made them legal... and that was a hit...

MS ... take the hint.... its a very easy initiative to capture the WHOLE market...
 
Buddy...although a doller costs 40 rupees its purchasing parity stands around 6 rs.That means 1 dollar in us has the same value as 6 rs in india
How can they sell the software at the same price as US.?????????????

There they pay a soft engineer 3000 dollars and here they pay around 450bucks.....

Put the price with respect to the indian segment..I will be the first one to buy win xp /win vista original at Rs 500 !!!!!!
 
Look, my policy on this is, the retailers have no right to complain. You get caught, you lose. And if you are afraid of getting caught, don't do it.

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

It is impossible for them to start installing Linux - the idiots who pass of as retailers barely know how to switch on a computer most of the time.
 
spitfire said:
Buddy...although a doller costs 40 rupees its purchasing parity stands around 6 rs.That means 1 dollar in us has the same value as 6 rs in india
How can they sell the software at the same price as US.?????????????

There they pay a soft engineer 3000 dollars and here they pay around 450bucks.....

Put the price with respect to the indian segment..I will be the first one to buy win xp /win vista original at Rs 500 !!!!!!
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Huh where did you get the Rs 6 fig from ? last I checked on the Economist it was 30 something...
 
look what has happened w/the music industry.. they fought over pirated cd's for so long.. now you can purchase songs online for reasonable prices, their biz has increased because of it.

It is a bunch of bs too, I can purchase an educational copy of xp (plain packaging, no cd box) for less than $50.00... I don't need all the fancy packaging to make it work. This is so hypocritical of MS, and then they go and sell it in China for $3.00 to encourage it's use in schools in China. The average wage there is so low, that most people are lucky if they can afford to buy a pirated version, let alone download one.

MS is going to have to play better with Linux... or they will end up suffering for it.. people are sick of paying hundreds of $'s for overpriced software... bill is a billionaire (if not the richest, one of the richest men in the world), so no one can tell me they are not making money.

Sorry... gets my hackles up... I would dump MS in a heartbeat if it wasn't for necessary software I use. The key will be to convince the software companies to start producing more Linux versions of their software.. this will open MS's eyes very quickly...... F*@k you MS :P
 
Aces170; said:
Huh where did you get the Rs 6 fig from ? last I checked on the Economist it was 30 something...
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nah..the ppp comes to arnd 4.2 if you take IMF data for India's GDP (as on 2006)....in PPP terms its $3,729,533mn whereas the nominal value is $886,867mn....of course its a raw estimate.but nontheless its not even close to 30...max it can be is arnd 6-7...
 
khimera said:
Thousands of software engineers work for sleepless hours. Many more are hired newly for the job. All of them work almost 24/7 when the month and hour of D day i.e the release is approaching. If ppl dont buy those dvds or cds, hundreds loose their jobs, Many of the guys wont know what to do as software is the sole thing that they know. If you were one of those guys who lost ur job and ur future because of some idiot's decision to copy the actual one and sell it for dirt cheap ( coz he doesn't know the efforts involved ) will u keep quiet? You should think twice before saying anything like that.

I am not saying i use all original versions and never use any pirated stuff at all. But I always know that it is not right and will never support such statements
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I agree that thousands do work and are at the risk of losing jobs, but still, most of those who work are not indians, and even MS doesnt expect too much sale in india..... it is they who choose to sell less for more instead of selling a lot more for less .....BTW there is a great chance if an indian firm like Infosys puts it's hands up and goes for a long term plan to develop a top notch OS.....then with competitive pricing, even MS can be forced to reduce prices globally, not just for the indian market......
 
Dude, the chances of infosys developing an OS are NIL. Of all the Indian IT companies, Infosys has least exposure to OS work (that hasn't stopped them from sponsoring this year's SOSP, but that is just advertising)
 
imo indian companies wont put their time, effort, money and research to produce a good os. They are happy to work for foreign companies who pay them well. Their motto would be to let indians slave for foreigners so long as the money keeps pouring.
 
6pack said:
Their motto would be to let indians slave for foreigners so long as the money keeps pouring.
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The slaving only happens with the body shoppers abroad. In your own country you *choose* who to slave for, cos only you knows best what you are worth.

As to anyone writing an OS, hehe, too late in the day for that. Look at the competitors,
- Linux (and its derivatives) are at least 10+ yrs by now (when it started to matter)
- OS X built on top of BSD

no one else, significant, left in the desktop space.

What's curious is why has m$ decided to crack down on Piracy *NOW*?

i mean they have been going a long time, only made token efforts in the past. or do they look at how much ppl spend for other things and calculate there is a *HUGE* shortfall in what they are making.

That orders of magnitude amount of ppl are using their OS, compared to profit made in the country. Since more ppl own pcs now than compared to say 10 yrs ago. Its very interesting here that you can buy a PC *without* the m$ tax if you choose to. That was hard to come by in the west until recently. Whether you bought a PC with or without m$ OS, you had already paid the m$ tax, as m$ strong armed lots of OEMs to incude their oS to the exclusion of anyone else's. Don't co-operate and you can expect an increase in cost when the next version ships. This was part of the big anti-trust bust hoo-haa from a few yrs back. It wasn't very effective. All they did was give Apple a little cash infusion, so they could get off life-suport and then claim see ..there is another competitor in the market, you have choice,,CASE CLOSED.

But that's not the case in this country (yet)...see thats something m$ cares bout much more than whether ppl pirate or not.
 
The reason is simple: Due to the comparitively good sales of legal Windows XP copies over the years before Vista was released, MS realized the market was getting stagnant and hence the crackdown was started to extract more money by forcing these people to use original Windows.

Its all about the cash flow, its NEVER been about anything else...
 
Lol.

Nothing is ever going to happen.

It will just be a stalemate.

People will keep finding ways to Pirate even Vista, which already can be activated btw :P, and this cycle will go on for eternity.
 
The options are coming soon . better believe it . i truly believe linux will take wings and absolutely take market share in years to come . sooner than later .

I am very good around working with windows . i am also very sure most of you all are .

I always wanted to try linux and make it my primary OS due to my determination to use as much freeware as possible without pirating any software . i use open office , imgburn , media player classic , visual styles , x264 , Gimp , etc etc . the list is endless . Probably the only illegal thing i am using is Windows Xp .

realiszation struck me and i switched over to ubuntu . flawless ill tell you . the experience is very good .Incompatibilty , things not working as expected are all things of the past . i could easily live with linux as my primary OS . i do not have much work that i would need a windows PC for .

Having said that the only reason why people are stuck to windows is because of exposure . simple analogy - a child grows up learning only kannada . when he is 12 years old , he is expected to learn and converse in only english . That will be a complication . Leaning a new language this late will be an immense effort and the transition , difficult .

The correct way to make inroads to make sure that Linux grows as a OS of choice is to train the next generation . ie Your kids on linux rather than windows . Most of us here have crossed over in their 20's . so the next generation is coming soon :P probably in 5-6 or at the most in 10 years .

Just remember my post . Make sure they KNOW linux .
 
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