M$ targets piracy or shoots own foot? [Archive]

warp99

April 25th, 2006, 03:14 PM

khightower

April 25th, 2006, 03:17 PM

That is the main reason I switched to Open Office. I had to find another way. I also got tired of clients and family asking me for an Office CD.

Now I give them Open Office 2.0

ollesbrorsa

April 25th, 2006, 03:23 PM

For home use there just isn't a justification for paying for MS Office. OpenOffice is just what the doctor ordered (or in my case what the wallet ordered ;) ).

I'm sure there are situations where nothing but MS Office is viable. I just haven't run in to any such situation yet. Hopefully I never will...

Go OO!

/ollesbrorsa

nolihc

April 25th, 2006, 03:51 PM

When i reinstalled ms office, it stated that i had installed it too often(yes a official license). That was the moment i installed openoffice.org. Now i only use unix based machines in my house. Bye bye MS!

Kimm

April 25th, 2006, 04:00 PM

If MS stops pirates from using their software, they wount loose money, they will just lose their wide user base (and berhaps cause compatability problems for MS Office?)

mjm115

April 25th, 2006, 04:02 PM

Yeah, the Microsoft licensing is what is really making them lose business. People don't want to be told what they can do with their systems. But WE can tell Microsoft what to do with THEIR software. OpenOffice is a no-brainer when you look at your choices.

warp99

April 25th, 2006, 04:46 PM

If MS stops pirates from using their software, they wount loose money, they will just lose their wide user base (and berhaps cause compatability problems for MS Office?)

That's the idea. If they lose their user base there would be no advantage to use M$ Office over another product. The substitution effect (Economics 101) would kick in driving illegal users to products that have a lower price than a legit copy of M$ Office.

Since the M$ Office pirate copy price was $0 what product would be the likely substitute? Mmmm? OpenOffice does comes to mind. So what happens if we shift the user base?

Shifting the user base will produce, guess what? Compatibility issues. And with compatibility issues comes no incentive to purchase legit copies of M$ Office. :mrgreen:

warp99

April 25th, 2006, 05:18 PM

The OpenOffice shift is already developing in Japan, well with some strange marketing included:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/06/sourcenext_horse/

I understand this forum is an international community and I'm very open to different cultures, but I just don't understand the horse thing. :-k

Edit: Sorry? Fixed link.

prizrak

April 25th, 2006, 05:40 PM

WGA only affects you on updates doesn't it? How many home users update Office?

warp99

April 25th, 2006, 05:59 PM

WGA only affects you on updates doesn't it? How many home users update Office?

It also will include calling the mother ship before activation, just like XP. :(

Kimm

April 25th, 2006, 06:27 PM

WGA only affects you on updates doesn't it? How many home users update Office?

My father used to use the...... free copy of MS Office, he did update it.

prizrak

April 25th, 2006, 06:31 PM

It also will include calling the mother ship before activation, just like XP. :(
Good! More OO users ;)
I think MS Office is an excellent product, still the best Office suit out there. However home users have no need for all the features so the price is simply unjustified.

blastus

April 29th, 2006, 08:05 PM

Microsoft Office is a waste of money. The majority of home users probably don't use more than 5% of its features yet they buy it anyway because they are under the illusion that Microsoft Office is their only possible viable choice. If anything, basic office productivity software should have been commoditized a long time ago.

AndyCooll

April 29th, 2006, 11:55 PM

As an ex-pirate software user I have to admit that ...to an extent ...the clampdown on piracy is working (and I'm talking in general here, not just M$).
Most of us now more clearly understand the effects of piracy. We may even have some sympathy ...to a point. The problem is ...that in too many cases the way they clamp down is by using methods that actually infringe on my legal freedoms (DRM, trusted bloody computing etc).

Even M$ get up my nose. They tend not to be as heavy-handed (I think they once said that if someone was going to use pirated software, they wanted it to be theirs). I don't have a problem with them blocking updates etc. I don't even have an issue with the one licence one install, and the having to type in a code and registering to use your software. Where I do have an issue, is with the limits placed on me on how I use my software, ie. having to ring up after so many re-installs etc.

And now that I've found open-source software I find the price to be an issue. It always was, hence the reason for using pirated copies. Now I can ignore it because as blastus points out there are alternatives that can do everything that I, a typical user, need. I hope with this latest clampdown many others finally see the light too!

:cool:

drizek

April 30th, 2006, 02:22 AM

ya, im also an expirate.

I wouldnt really say theyre "clamping down" though. Unless you dont even bother to read the instructions, cracking even the hardest windows software is a piece of cake.

What has happened however is that you cant just share your cd with friends, you need to actually download the version with the crack. This actually leads to more piracy. THe other thing theyre doing is implemeinting it like ****, so not only is it extremely easy to crack, it is a pain in the *** for the legal users. They are only making the situation worse now because they actually encourage people to pirate their software.

For us however, this means that people no longer feal like they should pay for software. Once the companies actually do get their **** together and make stuff that is simply uncrackable, there will be a huge influx of linux users. Even if they dont use linux, they will use gimp/openoffice/etc. And with KDE 4, there will be many more cross platform KDE apps, which means even more competition for microsoft.

Application userbase doesnt matter much though. HTe important thing is the acceptance of open formats. MS can have their office suite, i dont care, they jsut need to use ODT instead of DOC.

teet

April 30th, 2006, 07:38 AM

M$ is now extending there WGA program to M$ Office:

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=31245

M$ Office is probable the most copied app on the planet. Well they can go ahead and push them straight to OpenOffice:

Late night session finishing a term paper?

M$ Office Pro - $500.00 USD
OpenOffice 2.0 - $0.00

Giving Bill Gates the middle finger, or two fingers, PRICELESS!!! :cool:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16832102361

To be perfectly fair, you can get a copy of Works Suite 2006 for a measely $68 (this includes a full copy of Microsoft Word...and a bunch of other "crap" programs that you won't actually use). If you need a full-blown office suite (which most people do not) and you are a student or teacher then you can get a the whole shabang for $135 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16832102528 ).

Besides, if they start requiring WGA checks for MS Office, pirates will just stop installing the updates...I know I've never really needed any of the updates for MS Office.

-teet

htinn

April 30th, 2006, 10:55 AM

The only people this affects are legit users. Pirates always find hacks within 24 hours.

blastus

April 30th, 2006, 08:36 PM

Windows XP is already like 5 years ago and Windows Vista is going to be released soon. These anti-piracy programs are testbeds for what will be included in Vista. They say its opt-in. That's nice, WGA was once an opt-in also but it eventually became mandatory. I don't understand why they didn't do something like this 3 or 4 years ago. It seems like Microsoft is desperately trying to tread carefully here so as to not irritate so many people all at once, kind of like the boiled frog syndrome. It's opt-in now, but eventually it will be mandatory. It's going to have absolutely no effect on those who knowingly use Windows but didn't pay for it.

htinn

April 30th, 2006, 09:40 PM

I doubt that Microsoft really give a flip about WGA. I think that WGA is just a PR ploy to get anti-piracy lunatics off their case. Microsoft probably supplies hackers with information secretly in order to keep their "hook 'em when they're poor" strategy in place.

public_void

April 30th, 2006, 10:13 PM

One of the problems that I've found is large insitutes like University, Colleges etc use only Office. Forcing many people without Office, and unaware of OpenOffice is find a copy of Office, mainly because of file formats. People have asked me about getting copies. When I tell them its roughly £90 (≈ $184) for Student and Teacher Edition there not too pleased. But I always inform them of OpenOffice as an alternative.

ssam

April 30th, 2006, 10:23 PM

MSFT arnt silly enough to make piracy impossible.

Kernel Sanders

April 30th, 2006, 10:47 PM

MSFT arnt silly enough to make piracy impossible.

Microsoft arnt trying to make piracy impossible, their trying to make piracy impossible HERE. (Here being the Europe, America etc...)

You see, Microsoft software are well established here. Established enough for the average citizen to believe he "needs" Microsoft's software, because thats all he knows, and all he/she percieves that will be compatable with his friends/family's/work's sysyems. Also, we're considered "wealthy enough" to afford to pay for it now, so Microsoft is turning the screws while shouting "KERCHING"

However, in developing countries, where they are just starting to get into software in a major way, they can pirate Microsoft software as much as they want. Hell, i'll expect that Microsoft will even help them! Because the people there dont believe they "need" Microsoft software yet. At their early stage of technological development, they could quite easily adapt to apple, or Linux software.

NeghVar

May 1st, 2006, 12:38 AM

You can't remove piracy, you can't make software uncrackable. It's impossible. This idea is retarted, it won't do anything except annoy people. I say wait 24 hours and then hit up your favorite download site for the patch.

The best thing I see hapening is people realise just how much MS spies on people and decide that they won't put up with it anymore. MS killed itself long ago, they are just delaying the inevitable.

gamma

May 1st, 2006, 03:26 AM

I personally hate Office for the sheer fact it's incompatible with other formats. Sure I bet there are plugins, but I want to be able to save something in .abw format then be able to open it anywhere. It's also annoying to have teachers that post their notes in powerpoint only where there is no "legal" powerpoint viewer in Linux. Open office all the way, although gnome-office is coming along nicely.

drizek

May 1st, 2006, 05:13 AM

i thought gnomeoffice was just a bunch of gnome apps that have been around for a while, not an actual suite.

Anyway, you should be using the odt format, not abw. odt is compatible with OOo, koffice and others and is the standard text format. MS will have to give in to it eventually.

htinn

May 1st, 2006, 05:58 AM

http://www.gnome.org/gnome-office/

Abiword + Gnumeric + Gnome-DB = Gnome Office

What more could you possibly need? ;)

drizek

May 1st, 2006, 06:25 AM

when you said it was "coming along nicely" it sounded like there was a whole new office suite being developed.

and is there no powerpoint?

jeremy

May 1st, 2006, 06:50 AM

I only use free software, but firmly believe that those who use pirated windows, office etc. should be paid by microsoft for advertising their products.

Dr. C

May 6th, 2006, 03:09 AM

Well here is a FLOSS response to the piracy of Microsoft Office!

http://why.openoffice.org/

htinn

May 6th, 2006, 03:34 AM

Another problem for Microsoft is the PR hailstorm if someone is ever prosecuted wrongfully because someone decides to *plant* MS Office on their computer and then reports them to the BSA.

newbie2

May 6th, 2006, 08:19 PM