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Microsoft Runs Out Of Windows XP Family Licenses
TrAvELAr writes: "'There is a backlog,' says Mark Croft, lead product manager for Windows XP. According to this article on IDG, Microsoft has underestimated it's popularity of the new Windows XP family license. In an effort to slow piracy within single households, Microsoft has introduced the family license which will allow the user to install multiple copies of it's Windows XP operating system at a slightly discounted price of a $10 savings. Croft also states that the savings reflects the cost of Microsoft not having to produce another disc."
I don't think a ten dollar savings is going to stave off piracy on a 90+ dollar OS. Leaving off production costs is the START of sane pricing, not the END of a plan to give a price break for multiple purchases.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
The Register some critical coverage of the same matter. Seems this may be just a PR ploy
Why is everyone always bitching when Microsoft tries to milk its customers? The more people get milked, the more they consider their alternatives.
Let Microsoft double its price for the second installation and make software piracy a capital offense. I assure you that would increase the use of open-source software.
evanchik.net
I am not sure why they could not could not have tied the activation scheme into a credit card system to allow you to purchase additional licenses at install time.
Just tell the SSL web page how many computers you want to install on, pay $10-$15 for each additional license (not $80), and receive an activation code that you transmit to the central server each time you install on a new machine (and will work up to the number of licenses you bought).
I seems foolish to charge $90 for the upgrade, then another $80 for each additional, since MS only needs to sell one CD per household. With the lower price, MS still makes more money than they would off of a pirated copy, and the customer gets a licensing cost that is only slightly more torturous than the MacOS or Linux.
Regardless of what one thinks of MS' predatory behavior towards other software/hardware makers, it's in any company's interest to carefully think out and plan their consumer sales channel. MS' scheme looks pretty half-baked, indicating that it waqs not well-planned, and that nobody who actually works for the company has ever actually been a customer, and seen what it's like.
In other news, Sony has announced a new Television Family License which allows all members of a family or household (up to 5 individuals) to watch the same television, without violating the Sony Home Electronics License Agreement.
"Unauthorized television piracy has been a real problem for us.", says Steve Smith, the newly-appointed Director of Licensing Compliance at Sony. "Families would buy a single television, and then would sit together and watch programs without any regard for our license agreements. Sometimes they would even invite other people over to watch programs, without even purchasing a Single-Use Event License. We estimated that we lost over $500 billion in sales last year to this problem. This [license activation] is just a way to recoup sales lost to theft."
So how does the system work? When you first plug in your television, a string of numbers representing the body shape of the person standing in front of the TV is sent to Sony via the HumanaLicense(tm) dialup system. At that point, another string of numbers is sent back allowing the television to view broadcast stations. Without the code, the TV only plays Sony promotional material over and over again. After initial activation, the TV needs to be re-initialized whenever a different person sits in front of it for more than 25 minutes. The TV can be re-initialized up to four times, after which it needs to be returned to Sony for repair.
Some TV enthusiasts are concerned: "How can Sony get away with this?" says Rick Rayman, a self-described "videophile" who often invites friends and family over to watch movies and sports programs on his high-end setup. "I already paid them for the TV, why should it matter what I do with it inside my home?"
However Sony executives dismiss these criticisms. Smith explains: "That's exactly the attitude we're trying to fix: this weird hippy idea that once you pay the money, somehow the item is 'yours' to do with as you please. First, these pirates invite their wife into the room to illegally watch TV together, next thing you know they're shoplifting flat-screens from Wal-mart."
But already hackers have tried to break the system. A hacker group calling themselves "Television Freedom Fighters" have discovered that cutting one wire inside the television removes the protection system. The group of six kindergarden students have been identified and are being prosecuted under new anti-terrorism legislation. In addition, because the information was released on the internet, Sony is recalling the televisions and solving the problem by adding a second wire that needs to be cut.
To help ease the transition to license-based TV viewing, Sony is starting a new advertising campaign entitled "Compliance is Cool" featuring an animated talking dog named Larry. Sony plans to extend the system to other types of home electronics soon.
At least that is what I call it, ok what are you really getting here, your getting the "right" to use their OS on another machine. Wow...
Come on, if your going to pay another $80.00 bucks at least M$ could provide you with a nice box, CD and manual and perhaps some little stickers etc...
I can hardly think of any industry where you pay 90% full price of a product and you see really no tangible "product". Granted this is the software business, but who is really saving money here, not the consumer really, only microsoft. The consumer is actually not saving anything, M$ is jacking them out of the CD, box, etc... so yeah... the price should be $10 less. Personally, I would rather pay full price for a totally new copy so I can have another backup CD of the OS in case I damage the first one.
I'm sticking with Win2k for now.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
www.haidacarver.com
The family pack license is ONLY available on the full retail version of Windows XP. It cannot be purchased for the upgrade version.
Thus, to buy a family pack for two seats you must spend a minimum of $388.
Compare this to buying two over the counter upgrades for $198.
The family license itself, and the so called demand for it, is a pure marketing and PR ploy. It wasn't too hard for sales to be greater than expected, MS didn't expect too many people to actually go for this bugger at all!
Also note that demand isn't *consumer* demand, it's *retailer* demand. No telling how many of these are sitting on back room shelves, unasked for, and unloved, by actual retail customers.
As someone else has already pointed out The Reg has a good article on this.
KFG