Microsoft Cracking Down On Indian Retailers

slashthedot writes "Microsoft caught some Indian retailers selling pirated copies of Windows by sending in a dummy customer to ask for a copy of Windows to be installed on their PC. The dealers claim that they are promoting MS software in this way. One retailer said: 'Since we are are not charging anything extra for installing the software, it means that we are actually not trading in pirated software. For us this is just a sewa (selfless act) that we are offering to our customers. Besides, the pricing of their operating systems is way too high for the Indian markets.'"

Comments

If m$ is too pricey

[ultracool]

Why don't they just install Linux?

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[revengebomber]

I'll give you a hint: it starts in m, and ends in onopoly. If they were to install Linux, they'd face the same compatibility issues as if they were in the US.

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[froggero1]

no kidding... any artist will tell you that they'd rather have their works appreciated and known rather than be rich. I think this is the reason Apple software is the way it is, if you want something, and it's good enough, you'll toss a few bucks to the R&D team.

so basically, having;

1) a R&D dept that's better named search and steal
2) no vision, and
3) terrible track record (outside of shitty software as well)

is there any wonder why people rip off M$ at every opportunity they get?

joe six pack thinks that their software is worth shit, so that's what he feels obligated to pay.

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[robgig1088]

I was talking to one of my friends (who happens to be from India) the other day about computers. I mentioned that I use Linux and he was absolutely amazed and asked me why I would do that. Linux is considered the poor-man's operating system and most computers that come with it are wiped and a pirated version of Windows is installed. I'm still trying to grasp the reasoning behind it, other than I think Linux has the reputation as "too poor for Windows"

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[Daniel Phillips]

Microsoft hasn't had a monopoly for some time. You say that by what authority? Certainly not a knowledge of antitrust law or case history.

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[mikesd81]

It is? Because games run on it so well? Because it's so easy to install drivers for ATI and Nvidia video cards? Because it's easy to play HD-DVD?

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[Anonymous Coward]

Well then Linux should be designed for windows compatibility. The only way Linux can take over is by providing a seamless transition to the point where it doesn't matter what application you need, your data will be accessible from both operating systems. Then, and only then Linux can excel. $$$ for windows, or $0 for linux. They both do the same thing give or take, they are compatible, the apps are cross platform, and it just comes down to money.

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[franksands]

I am so sorry, but I have to say this: If linux could excel, they wouldn't have any problem, would they?

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[kcbrown]

I'll give you a hint: it starts in m, and ends in onopoly. If they were to install Linux, they'd face the same compatibility issues as if they were in the US.

It all depends on who they need interoperability with.

In the U.S., most businesses that run Microsoft do so after having paid for it. Microsoft maintains its monopoly largely through inertia. The market is already well-established and isn't growing much, so compatibility with everyone else becomes the primary reason for choosing one piece of software over another. In the U.S., the compatibility requirements are already set and basically aren't going to change much. People run pirated copies in the U.S. in order to maintain that compatibility.

But India is more like an emerging market than an established one. That means there's a lot of room for growth, and thus a lot of room for choice. The compatibility requirements aren't as firmly set as they are in the U.S. market because the ratio of existing players to future players is much smaller.

The end result is that in India, if vendors like the one in the article really did sell Windows instead of giving it away and also offered Linux as the free alternative, the market would almost certainly choose Linux over Windows, and "compatibility" would wind up meaning compatibility with Linux, not with Windows, because as the vendor noted in the article, Windows is simply too expensive for most people to afford over there. In other words, the price of compatibility with the U.S. market would be too high for the Indian market to bear, and the Indian market would thus go its separate way.

And Microsoft would, as a result, lose an entire market. If the majority of people in India ran Linux because the price of Windows is too high, new players in the market would at that point have no particular reason to choose Windows at that point even if it were made free, because the primary compelling reason people run Windows is for compatibility with others in the market (which includes support and other benefits of compatibility). In this scenario, Linux would have the primary compatibility/support edge as well as the price edge, so Windows would be completely uncompetitive in the market.

That scenario is the one that Microsoft fears the most. Very few of Microsoft's products can win on their merits, so the dominance of Windows and the compatibility requirements of the market are really the only things keeping Microsoft in their dominant position. A market in which Windows isn't the dominant operating system is a market that Microsoft will probably do poorly in.

The bottom line is that for the Indian market, Linux is a much stronger contender than it is in the U.S. market, and it's only because of the ability (if not legality) of vendors such as the one in the article to give away Windows that Windows can do well in that market.

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[Daniel Phillips]

I'd say that even in 1998, Microsoft was arguably not a monopoly. A monopoly means they have the only product on the market, in this case x86 operating systems.

You are making up your own definition of what is/is not a monopoly. Please educate yourself.

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[nschubach]

there are numerous games for Linux that are mostly equivalent to their Windows counterparts.

Numerous older games: but that's about where it stops. Even if you count Wine, most of those older games have to run through the compatibility layer which slows things down. I can walk into Wal-mart/Best Buy/Circuit City/etc right now and practically guarantee that I will not find one that was designed to run under Linux.

If I search online, every game for Linux I see out there is dated. Games, like many other things are designed to grab and keep your attention for a short period of time. If they made games timeless (which I will argue is an impossibility) you'd never sell any games after that. It would be like creating an automobile that never breaks, and never stops running.

The truth of the matter is that 99% of all games produced today are produced around DirectX and Windows. Once you grab the attention of the masses through entertainment, you have their undivided attention for however long you want to hold it. It's a sad but true truth. Microsoft is tuned in to that truth. Heavily hedging to grab every corner and back alley of the entertainment business as they can before people stop grappling to the Microsoft "Bread and Butter".

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[dazlari]

That's an interesting perspective I've not considered. I'm no expert on Indian society but I do know it's heavily class based and has been for centuries. I expect that any prestige an OS has will weigh far more heavily than the underlying cost, pirated or not, and independent of its quality. It would be very difficult to turn that situation around without a lot of marketing; and network marketing probably wont cut it - you need big flashy billboards for this one.

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[letxa2000]

If that's the best complaint you've got, I'd say Linux must be ready for the masses.

It's not.

I was a Windows user but was using Linux on my server (Linux is great for a server). When I had some problems with a laptop that I thought were attributable to XP, I installed Linux on the laptop. I was surprised it mostly worked, but there were always some limitations. No serious power saving modes, a complete inability of the OS to turn off the backlight of my laptop screen when it should've, and when I shut the laptop screen the screen would stay on so the laptop keyboard could get a good look at the screen while I stored it in my laptop carrying case.

When I had to get a new laptop last year, it came with XP pre-installed (obviously). I gave it a few days and I just got used to everything working the way it is supposed to. My computer would actually hibernate when I closed the screen, the screen backlight would actually turn off when it was supposed to, and there were easy-to-use power-saving options.

Now I suppose it's possible everything got resolved in the last year, but I kind of doubt it. And even if those particular options work, the reality is that I still need Windows applications for what I do (specific cross-platform compilers, in-circuit specialized USB-based tools, QuickBooks, etc.). No, I'm not interested in an "equivalent" and, no, GnuCash is not even remotely equivalent to QuickBooks. I need the Windows applications in question. And last time I tried Wine on my last fresh Linux OS install, it literally didn't work with any of my applications--it wouldn't even complete the install process.

So, no, Linux is not ready for most desktops and ready for very few laptop desktops. Sure, I don't doubt that some Linux geeks and OS tweakers can make everything above work, but the fact remains that Linux is not ready for the desktop until it doesn't take a geek/OS tweaker to make these basic things work.

I used Linux for 2-3 years as my entire laptop-based desktop, but I got tired of the limitations and the work-arounds and tired of spending time dicking around with the OS rather than getting real work done. So, for now, I'm back on Windows. I hope at some point Linux truly is ready for my desktop.

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[EzInKy]

It is? Because games run on it so well?


Yes, Linux runs just about every game written for it extremely well and has emulators that will run some popular titles written for foreign systems decently.


Because it's so easy to install drivers for ATI and Nvidia video cards?


Actually this one really surprised me. I've been using Linux since '99 so am accustomed to configuring things by the command line but a friend of mine installed Kubuntu last month and was astonished how simple it was to switch to the nVidia drivers...all point and click. I will admit I was a bit disappointed when I was told a reboot was "required" though.


Because it's easy to play HD-DVD?


I may have heard wrong but I could have sworn I saw somewhere that at least one of the HD-DVD players used Linux as its OS. I'd search for it but I don't think playing HD-DVDs will be much of an issue for at least a couple more years.

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[Nosferatu Alucard]

You'd also be surprised at what little tiny things many users enjoy about their PC that Linux does not currently offer them. I couldn't find my windows installation CD to reformat my sister's PC, but I had a Kubuntu disk on hand, so I put that on. I installed MP3 support for her, since my collection was in MP3 format, I taught her how to use Open Office, and showed her how to use the AIM chat software and things like that. She didn't have much of a problem figuring out how to get things done, but she did run into a lot of issues along the way. For example, my music collection isn't geared towards her tastes, so she likes to go onto websites like purevolume to listen to music. Flash, last time I checked, does not have a 64bit linux driver. Any website that was flash-based was off limits to her. Drivers were difficult to install for her, and anything that involved compiling or more than a double click setup file was too difficult to understand. She's got the capabilities to understand it, she's a very smart, tech savvy person, but she, like many other users, will not be too keen on the idea of having to spent hours researching a problem that pertains to a single bit of software. Until your average user can boot up, log in, and do everything without having to open a terminal or read a paragraph to determine which file is the right one in the suppository, you won't get the people who are middle-level users. The people who won't leave things alone, but won't spent hours figuring out how to play with it.

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[kcbrown]

Except Linux isn't free, when you include support costs and the reality of dealing with the leading distros.

Who's talking about support costs here? We're talking about the price the vendor can offer the product for. The cost of support will be (as it is for Windows vendors) borne by the vendor, and so it will be included in the cost of product. The price to the vendor of the product itself is an additional cost. Windows isn't free after you remove the support costs, while Linux is. It's as simple as that.

And because we're talking about vendors here, who determine what hardware they sell, the problem of drivers isn't an issue: the vendor can select hardware that is compatible with the Linux distribution they choose. The successful ones would do so anyway in order to minimize their support costs (and thus make them more competitive).

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[Anonymous Coward]

There are already enough stinking games for Linux. We need some good ones.

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[yoasif]

What happens in most of these OS/system debates sadly devolves into an argument about application availability. This is obviously quite a logical thing to look at, but in the computer market (unlike say, the video game console market), there is a pseudo-monopoly of sorts, and very little competition in the OS sector.

With companies like Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, the differences in platform are a lot more interesting, as the software that comes out for those platforms use the various technologies offered by the platforms in different ways. For example, look at the Wii and how it eschews mega-cool graphics for motion sensitive gameplay, or the PS3's ability to play Blu-Ray discs and 1080p graphics.

What ends up happening is that we don't actually argue the merits of the OSes (like features like zeroconf or AppleTalk vs. Windows File Sharing, or AppleScript vs. Visual Basic Scripting), but on "can I get application (or game) X for Y platform". The deck is stacked in Microsoft's favor; as the platform gets bigger, the "pseudo monopoly" grows even stronger (note the prevalence of the DOC file format), making platform comparisons a lot less about comparing the relative merits of the OS, but more about "do i want to risk not having the OS that everyone else has".

Which sucks for anyone who is really interested in choosing the best, rather than having to stick with "what's good enough" because all the apps are on it.

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[o2sd]

I'm just curious, what is the difference between a fucking retard and a retard ?

In some countries they sterilise retards to stop them from breeding.

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[evilviper]

I can walk into Wal-mart/Best Buy/Circuit City/etc right now and practically guarantee that I will not find one that was designed to run under Linux.

Unlikely. Anything from ID, and anything based on one of ID's engines.

And even with that, it's quite stupid to talk about software in brick and mortar stores. You aren't likely to find OpenOffice or Firefox in Wal-Mart stores either, but they're still two incredibly popular pieces of software. The software world is changing, and Linux has been at the forefront. With people getting their music online, whether legally or illegally, it's very clear people are willing to embrace online distribution, especially when they're getting something for free, which is the case with most Linux software.

The majority of Linux games aren't commercial, but derivitives, or otherwise free open source efforts, which often produce quite good products. And should Linux gain even a little popularity, yes, you'll see game developers developing ports using Wine, in the same way Corel did, and only natively writing/optimizing the performance-critical parts. In the mean time, Wine is only a stop-gap measure, and certainly not important to the capability of Linux gaming.

If I search online, every game for Linux I see out there is dated.

You're not very good at searching. Not my problem, or Linux's.

Games, like many other things are designed to grab and keep your attention for a short period of time.

Not even remotely true. 100 years from now you'll see clones of pac-man and Tetris doing quite well in the market. Mame and other emulators seem to be incredibly popular, despite the fact that all the games it supports are several years old. And even more, small arcades all over the country have games that are more than a DECADE old, still making plenty of money. Street Fighter 2, Mortal Kombat, and Cruisin' USA come to mind immediately, though there are hundreds of others.

Incidentally, the idea that games are a killer app for an operating system is ludicrous in itself. Apple has plenty of desktop market share, with far, far fewer games than Linux supports. Millions upon millions of videogame consoles are being sold, which makes a lot of people who really aren't using their PCs for much gaming at all. Plenty of PCs more than a couple years old are still in-use, and haven't been upgraded to play the latest and greatest games released this year...

I could go on, but if you haven't got the point by now, I don't think you ever will...

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[gsn]

Oh us "poor" Indians could afford a very nice graphics card back in the day. We just didn't pay for software. Couldn't tell you about the Q4 era but IIRC around quake 2/unreal we had S3, Matrox, Riva and 3dfx cards selling pretty well. We had to buy the video card - you couldn't exactly share that. We were all running exactly the same copy of quake 2, unreal and windows 98 though. Those games even made it onto the LAN in our computer lab and we'd play after school and before the extra "tuition" classes began.

The copy protections schemes didn't stop us then and I doubt they stop anyone now (if anything its gotten easier to pirate software). We could pay for Windows but why bother when we could get away with pirating it. As for the just try linux crowd, a lot of us did. I first tried RH7 of a cd that came with a computer magazine (PC quest IIRC), and at the time there was no contest between windows 98 and linux. I couldn't get my SB16 working and it was end of story until college. Today its a different story and I think a lot of people in India can switch to linux without too much difficulty. If windows still exists its because of games/other windows only software and inertia, and MS is only helping the latter by trying to curb piracy.

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[jchandra]

I'm an Indian, and I can tell you that your information is wrong.

Linux is not considered a poor man's OS. It is just that most of the software here is pirated and available almost free, that people don't have the incentive to learn Linux, except the technically oriented people.

I've seen people buying high end systems (about 800$), from local dealers with pirated window xp, ms office and loads of cracked games, and 1000s of mp3s all free as part of the deal.

In big cities like Bangalore they have started cracking down on people selling pirated CDs.

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[notamisfit]

There's never been any pbjective standard on what exactly constitutes a *coercive* monopoly worthy of intervention under the Sherman Act. Basically, it boils down to a US Attorney saying "You know what? We think you're it, and we're going to bone you in the ass for it" MS's "monopoly" came into existence for one and only one reason: the complete and utter incompetence of just about everyone else in the software market (and I say this as a Linux/BSD guy). It's not like they stuck a gun in WordPerfect's back and said "Make this completely unusable in a GUI so everyone buys Word".

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[kcbrown]

Nothing is "as simple as that". It's the TCO that matters, which takes into account the cost of staffing etc. I use Linux for my production and development platforms, exclusively, but I'm not under any illusions that it's "free". It's "free as in beer", as in I owe the community a round if I get mine.

The TCO is what matters to the customer. It's not what matters to the vendor. It's the decision of the vendor that we're talking about here. The costs to the vendor are what determine what products the vendor offers and, ultimately, the price at which the vendor offers them.

The vendor is concerned about the acquisition cost primarily, and any difference in support costs that he must bear. Anything else is the customer's problem, and only the customer's problem.

So the fact that the acquisition cost of Linux is free is highly relevant here, because the acquisition cost is, in this case, a significant portion of the total cost of the software to the vendor, and in the case of windows, it's also a very significant portion of the total cost of the entire product to the vendor. In fact, the cost of Windows in India may be so high as to exceed the cost of the computer itself. Otherwise the vendor's comment about the high price of Windows would be irrelevant.

The situation in the U.S. is different. The largest vendors get a very deep discount for selling windows, enough so that the cost of Windows to them is a tiny fraction of the cost of the overall product. That is apparently not the case for the Indian vendors, and that is why the relative acquisition costs of Windows versus Linux is so relevant to the Indian market.

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[jaganm]

In India, support costs are not really as important as in the west. A typical one-year maintenance for your PC would cost around 1500 rupees and that will provide a technician who will come to your house and fix the problem for you. Of course, the quality is not outstanding, but then you get what you pay for. The downtime doesn't really matter the same way as in the west, because the measure of time in India is quite different.

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[nareshov]

Linux is NOT considered the poor-man's OS. It's mostly the elite OS used by a bunch of college-goers. There aren't any computers which come with linux in India (excepting a few acer models which I doubt anyone buys). Most windows pcs are running pirated versions and they're mostly for gaming or, as the other parallel comment says, for .NET and windows specific programming.

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[muuh-gnu]

> Linux is not considered a poor man's OS.

It is. The poorer a society, the more it values products they otherwise could not buy. If you are not a professional, who can judge the value of a product by its quality, the price is the only distinction. So Windows is perceived like something that costs "hundreds of US Dollars!!" and Linux as nearly worthless, so if price is the only criterion, getting Windows for free (or for $% on a pirated CD) is a way better deal like Linux for free (or god forbid, $5 for a CD). Ten years ago, when the net was still in its infancy, I knew people who danced around when they after hours an hours of downloading with a 56k modem, managed to get photoshop & Co, because "it cost $2000". They surely wouldnt have danced around after downloading a free software like Gimp, even if they needed it only for cutting their photographs and changing brightness and contrasts. They also wouldn't have valued Photoshop or Windows so much if the $2000 was a spare change for them, but would have equally evaluated every product which comes into question for a given task.

>> "I mentioned that I use Linux and he was absolutely amazed and asked me why I would do that."

He was absolutely amazed because the GP deliberately used something that was "free" (aka worthless) instead of somethig that has a higher market value by several hundred of dollars, even when you can get the second one for free of the net. He most certainly did not know either windows or linux good enough to base his decision on product quality. He probably never tried Linux at all, because it was "so cheap" compared to windows.

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[smilindog2000]

Microsoft trying to enforce copyrights in countries like India and China is not new, not even worth a /. article. However, India allowing Microsoft to impose sanctions is new. The interesting untold part of this story is India's unstoppable trajectory from being a technically backwards nation that encouraged rampant copyright violations, to being a technical powerhouse that enforces intellectual property rights. Without any sort of intellectual property protection, you can't have many indigenous companies that write software or design electronics, since there would be no local market for their products. As India's high-tech industry grows, it will convince the Indian government to protect their products. This isn't about Microsoft... it's much more about India. Microsoft will simply benefit along with the local Indian high-tech companies, once intellectual property rights are enforced.

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[nschubach]

The majority of Linux games aren't commercial, but derivitives, or otherwise free open source efforts, which often produce quite good products.

...and quite unfinished or bug ridden. Usually on version 0.9.x for the remainder of their life. Never quite reaching that 1.0 state.

Since I stopped playing First Person Shooters in the year 1999 when I was completely bored with the genre no thanks to every derivative of Team Fortress, Quake and Unreal Tournament, any ID game created then or now is pretty much exempt from any gaming lists I look at. I've been a big fan of story driven RPGs and space themed RTS games, but the last titles I know of that fit either of those two styles are Battle for Wesnoth and well, I can't think of any decent galactic turn based commerce games. Although, Neverwinter Nights 2, Oblivion and Galactic Civilizations are three titles which have had my attention on the Windows partition for the last few months. Reaching the end of the entertainment value of those, I'm at another point where I'm looking for a game. I decided to look for something I can load up on my Ubuntu partition without having to check Wine for some twisted method of recompiling wine specifically to run one game. I tire of that sort of thing nowadays and I just want to pop in a game and have it work. I program for a living, and I like to keep my work out of my personal life as much as I can.

And FYI, I have an assortment of sites that I look to when I am looking for new Linux games to try on for size. Most of them have some sort of petition listing or call to developers because they see the same thing I do. Lack of variety and change (in the form of updated visuals, story lines, and bug fixes.) I even have them categorized in Firefox so I can fire them all up in tabs and see what's new. On the off chance I do hit Google up for a new listing or something I missed, I still find the same "Top 10" listing of games I don't want to play. Mah Jongg (yawn), America's Army (yay, FPS), Armageddon Advanced (Tron, again?), Cube (is that another FPS?), Pingus (Well, that was fun for a day), Neverball & Neverputt (I'll pass), Nexuiz (Hey! Another FPS!), Enemy Territory (I see a FPS pattern forming here), Frozen Bubble (Another fun for a day title), and of course Battle for Wesnoth. Battle for Wesnoth took me one day to finish one of the mission trees and I can't quite pull myself into playing it again. No character building, same bland tiles and each story is the same package in different faces.

But no worries! I have Mame/NesEmu (or whatever variation they have today). Yeah, no. When I was 15, and ogle at the latest Street Fighter variation because it has awesome graphics and the people looked so real(!) it was interesting. But there's one thing I've found over the years. Retro gaming is best left to the memory. Every game I've ever loved has been ruined by me trying to play it again today. As I stated before. Things get dated. They wear out. I will never retro game ...ever again.

Oh, and as far as killer apps are concerned. Games are the only thing keeping me in Windows. Well, that and work. Where the teams in charge of selecting the proper OS to code in decided that Windows will remain for a long time due to the fact that EVERYTHING is written in it. They spend the better part of the last 7 years getting rid of Novell and OS/2 to move to a standard platform. Since most everything was written (mostly from the ground up by internal development) on Windows 2000/NT, I'm stuck developing software on Windows for a long time the way I see it. At home, I still maintain my Linux partition, but when I get home and want to relax, sit down with a game with my friends, and waste away the night on something I enjoy... Linux is the last thing on my mind. Regrettably. I even have it set to my default OS in case the day comes when I can start it up and play something that wasn't developed over the past 10 years usi

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[B2382F29]

Want to use Flash on a 64bit browser?

Re:If m$ is too pricey

[mux2000]

I traveled for a year in India, and being the geek that I am, I had many conversations about computers with the indian people I met. In many of these talks I got the powerful sentiment from the people I talked to that Bill is quite the hero in India. There's a peculiar mindset there - I wouldn't exactly call it rabid capitalism or money-worship, but more like a strong emphasis on the significance of being rich/poor. The feeling is that rich/expensive==good, poor/cheap==bad, disregarding all else. That means that it doesn't matter if Billy acts like an ass, he must be a good person since he's rich. Windows must be a better OS than Linux simply because it costs more.

Trying to talk them out of this mindset was futile. They couldn't grok the possibility of a pricey yet crappy piece of software or a rich bad man.

Oblig. disclaimer: I can't speak of Indians in general, just the people I met and talked to, but this mindset seemed to be common there.

linux

[wizardforce]

MS needs to tread carefully... aw screw it.. ironically if they make the argument that pirating is wrong it opens the door to linux. 2 billion people * even a small percentage = ALOT.

Re:linux

[romland]

Wow, insightful. Why did you post anonymous with a thing like that?

Re:linux

[Lon]

Ballmer, you crazy guy, is that you?

Sad.

[Jordan (jman)]

While I'm not the biggest fan of Microsoft or their products, this is quite blatant piracy. I work for a computer repair shop where we get customers asking us to do stuff like this all the time, but it is the same as stealing one off the shelf. Any tech in my shop would be fired instantly for doing something like this. The golden rule is, if you can't afford it then don't buy it. I would be going after them too if I was Microsoft. These are companies pretty much promoting piracy.

Re:Sad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed.

Plus I don't think anybody on slashdot would believe that putting Windows on somebody's computer is a "selfless act".

Re:Sad.

[Doctor_Jest]

They infringed on Microsoft's copyright. They did not profit from it.... nor did they make anything more than something a college student does for his pals.
In order to maintain that there is damage (hence criminal infringement), these people have to be able to buy the software if said copy-service wasn't in place.
Since the average person over there can't call ma (like the college students) to get the money for the copy, how is this a loss for Microsoft? If there wasn't a copy-service set up to put windows on their computers, there would not be any sales of Windows... period. The only thing Microsoft is doing here is preventing market penetration by not allowing what they allowed here in the dim past of their existence. Publicly decrying software "piracy", but allowing the crack to take hold and cement the brand for future revenue... If they feel the need to squeeze blood from a turnip, have at it.

And before you split hairs, I'm not talking morality here. I'm talking the definition of damages received from the copying of their software.... hence the "damages" received from someone trying to copy their OS. If these losses are so prevalent, and so concrete... write them off on their taxes. See if the IRS believes your figure. They CAN'T because it's _speculation_... or as I like to call it... a WILD ASSED GUESS about how much they _perceived_ in losses due to someone not going to the store to get their copy of Windows. Whether or not that person would do so _at all_ if there wasn't an alternative never factors into the equation. (which brought me to the first point...)

How do you know these computers aren't $50 hunks of leftovers dumped by corporations when they updated their secretarial pool to new quad xenon ultra specials?
Simply owning a PC does not automatically give them the purchasing power to go out and get Windows... We don't generally know the entire story.

And lo, for $5, you can get a professionally duplicated copy of Windows and Office in stores all over Eastern Europe and China. Is Microsoft afraid to get involved with the organized crime behind these copies? I think so... So they beat up _symbols_ of "piracy" like these shops in India and try to garner press for their actions and sympathy for their "losses." They're losing the PR war to Linux, and yet when people in India who cannot afford to buy their OS (even at their "adjusted" prices) yet desire to run their software do this, Microsoft gets their knickers in a twist and closes the door on yet another market... giving something else position to take away their position.

Way to go, MS. I applaud you. Show those Indian bastards by pulling all your call centers and support lines out of the country until they can clean up their act. That'll show them the consequences of infringing on _your_ IP, by god. ...waiting to see the call centers close up....

Re:Sad.

[hjf]

The golden rule is, if you can't afford it then don't buy it. I would be going after them too if I was Microsoft. These are companies pretty much promoting piracy

Let's see, I assume you are an american. You see, not everyone in the world makes the same as you americans do. Not all of us (myself included, I live in Argentina) can afford to spend 2 to 3 months salary on Windows. And microsoft doesn't help either. They have this flat-price policy, all over the world. You *may* begin to understand us, blatant pirates, the day Microsoft charged USD 6000 for a copy of Windows. But that isn't going to happen, as Microsoft even offers discounts to students, of course those discounts are available for USA only (and a few selected european countries).

The problem is their monopoly. Someone who tries to find any job nowadays is required to know Windows (let's not enter the Linux argument, please). Just take my word for it.

Microsoft tried to "help" the situation a little by releasing the "starter" editions: crippled versions of their software for less money. Personally, I see that as an insult. You see, I go to the movies every now and then. Last year I went to see "The Da Vinci Code", the same day it was released in my country (may 18). I paid $5 (that's 5 pesos, or USD 1,80) to watch the movie. It wasn't a pirated divx, it wasn't a crippled down, shorter, lower-quality version of the movie. It wasn't even a cheaper remake. It was the same movie that was released in the US one day later (movies are released on Thursdays in my country). It wasn't a crappy cinema either. It had air conditioning, a big screen, surround sound, nice seats, popcorn, coca cola, and everything else. So, how can the movie industry charge 1/5 to 1/10 what they charge in the US, and still profit, while Microsoft refuses to do so?

One time someone answered "because people would buy an imported copy of Windows and pay less for it". Yeah, right. I'd love to see an american with their brand-new cheap copy of Windows, in Spanish. Or some indic language even.

Re:Sad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed with a caveat. My neighbor, on the dole and going to school to get off welfare, depends heavily on the cheap PC she bought from Wal-Mart. Her ten year old son downloaded some stupid program to the PC, and it crashed the hard drive. The restore disks that came with the computer wouldn't work, and I had to call someone I know who has access to software. For $100, he had this family's PC back up and running in an hour. How are they supposed to be able to afford to buy a new full version of Windows XP? The computers should be sold with install disks for the operating software. Since they don't, I say fuck Microsoft and the ugly donkey that Bill Gates rode in on.

Re:Sad.

[digitalchinky]

Same deal in the Philippines. Windows XP Home (OEM) costs Php4900 ($106 US) retail. While Office 2007 off the shelf is Php8000 ($172 US) for the cheapest version. Minimum legal wage set by the government is Php8400 per month, in reality people are lucky if they make half of that though.

Linux is pretty popular over here, you can have it installed wherever you buy a PC, though many retailers charge more to install it than an original licensed copy of windows for some stupid and illogical reason.

I'm not quite sure what my point is though.

Would be nice, wouldn't it?

[khasim]

In fact, Microsoft BENEFITS from such "piracy".

If the customers could not afford Windows and had to go with something like Ubuntu, then more people would become familiar with Linux ... and Microsoft would LOSE those customers.

This is going to happen, eventually, anyway. Microsoft has 90%+ of the workstation market. There's not many ways they can get money out of that market anymore.

Except by re-selling Windows to those same people. Again and again and again.

Re:Would be nice, wouldn't it?

[CosmeticLobotamy]

Regardless of whether or not that is true, Microsoft certainly does not think so by their actions.

"Some guys are taking our software without paying for it."
"That helps us. Network effects and stuff."
"Great! So we'll tell everyone to just go ahead and make all the copies they like."
"No, dumbass. Then we get no money."
"Okay, what if we just don't say anything?"
"We're real popular, and people will figure out pretty quick that we don't do anything if they copy it, and we'll lose a ton of money."
"How about we quietly enjoy the piracy while making a big show of going after a few of them so people still have that tiny, little bit of fear to keep them honest?"
"Sounds good to me."

Re:Would be nice, wouldn't it?

[Jason Earl]

Microsoft benefited from it, then why would they crackdown on it?

Let's just say that Microsoft now believes that it can start harvesting the investment it made in the past by not hassling system builders in the Indian market. India now has a large technology industry, much of which is based on Microsoft software. Like the original poster said this almost certainly would not be the case if Microsoft had always been strict about licensing in India, but it is certainly the case now.

Besides, like executives in any publicly traded company Microsoft's executives are concerned about providing the growth in profits that will drive the stock price up. In Microsoft's case that means opening up new markets. India's technology sector is in a position to start paying for Windows, and Microsoft wants to make sure that Indians do exactly that.

Re:Would be nice, wouldn't it?

[1u3hr]

>>In fact, Microsoft BENEFITS from such "piracy".
>Regardless of whether or not that is true, Microsoft certainly does not think so by their actions.

Actually, MS's actions, as opposed to their words, show the opposite. MS will fulminate about software piracy, but in most Third World countries takes little action to prevent it. They know that in the long run, retaining a monopoly on OS and Office software is more valuable. When a country starts to take off economically, as India, its business and home users will naturally prefer to keep using the familiar software. Then MS can apply pressure to enforcement, and the next generation of hardware and software will be OEM-preinstalled MS, as in the USA. I've seen this happen in Hong Kong over the last decade. It used to be standard for PCs to come "fully loaded", with all the software that would fit on the hard disk. Now you get and pay for MS Windows, MS Office, and a little hologram certificate.

See also what happens in countries where alternative (Linux) OSs are seriously proposed, eg in Thailand a few years ago. Immediately MS released special editions of Windows and Office at a much lower price, and engaged in hard lobbying to kill the initiative. The almost 100% piracy rate prior to this had produced no reaction; MS had just been waiting for the economy to make people wealthy enough to be worth strongarming. Piracy does more to build marketshare for MS than any amount of advertising.

A solid legal argument

[carou]

Since we are are not charging anything extra for installing the software, it means that we are actually not trading in pirated software I wonder if YouTube's lawyers will use that watertight legal argument in their Viacom case...

Re:A solid legal argument

[asninn]

Copyright law isn't the same all over the world. Sure, this kind of argument probably wouldn't float in the USA, but can you really say whether there's any merit to it in India?

can we get the hahaha tag back now?

[zappepcs]

This is so illustrative of why MS' business model is wrong. It totally illustrates why F/OSS software is the way forward for the world in general. Charging for software licenses is just not right. Buying the right to use something is a rental agreement and when MS Windows and other software falls under the same laws as rental agreements... well, then I will sort of agree with them. As long as they contend that 'buying' a copy of Windows is only a right to use... well, they are open to abuse and such. Too bad for them. they chose the wrong business model... I have no sympathy.

Going further, while MS would like to enforce their monopoly, it is clear that the world's population is clearly not in alignment with their wishes. This would seem to indicate that either MS is wrong or the laws are wrong. Pick whichever you want, but the dichotomy is clear.

Personally, I hope that MS loses this one, not just because I wish them ill fortune (and I do) but because clearly in this situation they are pricing themselves out of the market. That business strategy is coming back to bite them in the ass, as it should, and will.

Re:can we get the hahaha tag back now?

[maxume]

Strangely, they aren't pricing themselves out of the market. There is some revenue that they think they aren't getting due to unlicensed copying of their software, but they are still ending up with a large portion of the market using their software.

I have to disagree with your analysis though. No matter what you think of Windows, it is a better operating system than I could write for the amount of effort I have to put forth to pay for a license to use it. It actually provides a great deal of functionality for the price. You might even say it is cheap. This is a property of any software that has broad use. The $500 price difference between Windows and Linux is essentially meaningless to someone earning Western salaries(for varying degrees of meaningless...anybody that 'needs' a computer will pay it once every three or four years without blinking).

The software market is increasingly mediated on quality, and perhaps unfortunately, perception of quality. This is why crappy Free Software generally isn't all that popular(and excellent Free Software is exceedingly popular).

great...

[owlnation]

MS now stands for Mystery Shopper!

huh?

[Mazin07]

We are not against piracy but against the way Microsoft is working to stop it Are they essentially saying they promote piracy?

Re:huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's either a typo or translation mistake - I am sure they wanted to say they are not against *stopping* piracy..

Good.

[RealGrouchy]

If laws like this aren't enforced, how will the masses ever come to realize how stupid the laws are?

- RG>

Re:Good.

[trawg]

Laws like, "you should pay money for other people's work, if that's how they want to provide it"? What's stupid about that?

If you don't like Microsoft, fine - but saying that the laws are stupid because they want to charge for their work seems a little bit silly.

Another selfless act

[Mazin07]

Thank god for the saints over at The Pirate Bay committing millions of thankless acts every day!
Mother Theresa, eat your heart out.

This has got to be the funniest of all things...

[Anonymous Coward]

... I had read in a while - Robinhood style!

Seriously though MS should understand the very practical, priceless message the traders are giving them for free - Not many people in India could a) buy a branded PC and b) Buy a locally built one AND pay for the OS - Last I checked, XP Home was Rs. 4500 which is about 1/3rd the price of the full PC.

For one it is nearly impossible for Microsoft to stop the piracy in countries like India and China - even though India has laws to deal with it, there is little there to enforce them on that scale. Secondly if it is enforced, people would just find free alternatives like Linux, or simply give up on computers - none of which is good for MSFT. XP (NOT Starter - Indians are the choosiest customers and for the most part are fool-proof!) should be priced around 300 Rs or so and drive against piracy should be stepped up enough that people know that enforcements are increasingly common if Microsoft has any chance of selling legal copies to a common man in India.

Haha

[Austaph]

We are the one who are promoting their products in the market and if they will behave in such a rash manner with us then we will stop business with them. Your dollars, which weren't even there to begin with, will not be missed.

Re:Haha

[QuantumG]

They are promoting Microsoft's products.. and, frankly, I wish they'd stop it.

This is why I've never been much opposed to "copy protection" for software. If people were required to pay for Microsoft products the prices would come down.

Define Sad

[Nymz]

Here are a few definitions from words used in the article...

Indian Market - A place where Windows is priced too high to consider paying for, but where GNU/Linux is too (blank) to even consider installing at no cost at all.

Raid - Pretending to be a normal customer, asking for a free copy of Windows, then mailing a Cease & Desist letter a month later. Very similiar to sending dozens of men to jump out of a van, and seizing all software and hardware.

Boycott - When you declare that you will stop purchasing from a particular company. It is not important that you weren't buying from them in the first place, the point is to make a distraction and take the focus off yourself. Remember, in the news, it's not who is right or wrong, it's who can successfully portray themselves as the victim.

I'm confused

[TheWoozle]

Since when is installing a Microsoft OS an act of kindness?

This is good for Linux

[rolfwind]

When MS enforces, people will be forced to turn elsewhere.

Otherwise, MS gets adopted wholly, until the market is 100% MS. Enforcing a MS lock-in there, also enforces it in other places of the world.

The way to freedom will be paved by MS tightening its Iron Grip in this area. It will cause short-term incovenienc, but it is good in the long run.

Re:I dislike MS

[bill_mcgonigle]

I would personally suggest Linux, but I guess that would come out as trolling here at /.

Which Slashdot do you read?

MS is on a tightrope

[petermgreen]

a user moving from pirate windows to legitimate windows is a gain for MS (obviously)
a user moving from pirate windows to linux is a loss for MS (because it helps the mindshare of linux which in turn helps it into places that DO pay for the propietry software they use)

clamping down on piracy is obviously going to do both to some degree, which is more significant in a particular case is very hard to calculate.

Retailer Backlash: No M$ Purchases for Quarter.

[twitter]

The crackdown is not nearly as interesting as the vendor reaction: a general strike against M$. They have a guild and 350 shops have boycotted a M$ training session and pledged to purchase nothing from M$ for the next quarter.

350 dealers joined in a statewide bandh (that's a general strike) initiated by Surat-based South Gujarat Information Technologists Association (SITA). ... The resellers have also planned boycotts against Microsoft. Those participating in the strike agreed to stop all purchases of Microsoft products for this quarter.

This is a real culture clash and M$ is going to lose. Compare it to Gandhi's Salt March to Dandi and you can see where this is going. If M$'s $3 "education pack" is not good enough and they won't quit making alternate software difficult by vendor and driver manipulation, the people of the world will simply take what they want. M$ can no more stop this than the British Empire could keep people from taking salt from the sea.

I'd rather they discovered free software. It would be better for them and they could more easily implement things like DVD playing and advanced video codecs than people endumbered by dumb laws like the DMCA. Using M$ leaves the user open to M$ violation down, powers the botnet and props up M$'s awefull non free formats.

Actually, this is a good thing

[einhverfr]

For exactly this reason.

When I was in Indonesia, a similar crackdown happend (by the government). The reaction by businesses was immediate and strong: develop roadmaps for migrating all possible systems to Linux.

Full-page advertisements were seen in major newspapers advertising open source migration services.

It was really interesting. Nearly every computerized business that I came in contact with asked me about Linux and how suited it would be for their work.

Yes, a lot of them will install Linux.

yeah

[JustNiz]

I've often thought microsoft software is only fit for the sewas.

International Pricing

[Tablizer]

"Besides, the pricing of their operating systems is way too high for the Indian markets."

They want a cost-of-living price break for software, but we US programmers don't get a cost-of-living break when our jobs are sent to India due to our high cost-of-living. They want a double standard. (And programmers there are usually well off, often able to afford a maid.)

Microsoft Cracking Down On Indian Retailers

[Seumas]

Microsoft Cracking Down On Indian Retailers

How?

(Thanks, I'll be here all week.)

Re:I dislike MS

[pembo13]

I'm black????????

The perfect name for an Indian Linux distro..

[the_rajah]

Sewa Linux.

Of course it's "selfless."

[trudyscousin]

"For us this is just a sewa (selfless act) that we are offering to our customers."

Reminds me of a bartender giving free drinks to his friends. "No big deal to be generous with someone else's booze," his ex-boss said. (Paraphrased from an old Law & Order episode.)

I'm certainly no MS fanboy, but I hope those retailers get nailed for this.

Re:I see the real problem here.

[rajkiran_g]

and you can't really move to Linux because not every Windows app is compatible with Linux. :\

Not really. Microsoft just has to push harder and actually *MAKE* people pay for windows/office. That would be enough for the average Indian to give up on Microsoft software.

It is pricing that drives the Indian market. The only reason why people in India use Microsoft software is because it is effectively free. An unbranded, entry level desktop costs about 20,000 rupees (about 500 US$).

Most home computers are used for multimedia entertainment, games, programming and document preparation (by grad students) and internet. If one had to use exclusively Microsoft software (the so called genuine version of it), it would easily cost an additional 30,000 rupees (about 750 US$). That is significantly higher that the price of hardware and people would just spend *a little time* learning linux (which is pretty popular in India) rather than spending *a lot of money* buying that software.

Compatibility is a non-issue if everybody switches to linux.

I stay in Hyderabad and about 8-10 months ago, I have begun seeing large advertisements all over the city by Microsoft, urging people to insist on "Original Microsoft Software". Interestingly, I don't see them anymore these days. I guess Microsoft's toll free call centers would have been flooded with calls from Indians asking them to explain what "genuine software" is, and how it would make their life better :)

My guess is that people would consider "purchasing" software if and only if it is significantly cheaper than the hardware. Something like 2000 rupees (40 US$) or so for the OS, office applications, compilers and a couple of high-end games all put together.

Re:Paying for Windows

[Technician]

I knew someone would not pay for Windows.

Since I have a collection of old hardware I still use, I have problems with the one copy per machine license model. OSS has a much better model.

This is why my Wife has the single XP machine with MS office & Turbo Tax. It's also why I retired Windows 98 on a PIII machine and installed Ubuntu along with my Windows 2K laptop and a home built P4 white box (Media Center with TV tuner card and DVD burner)

The Windows license is clear, install on one machine only and do not transfer an OEM install. MS policy is why I have one XP machine and 3 Ubuntu machines.

I don't need 4 copies of XP, Office, Nero, AV, etc. As soon as the MS compatibilities go away, we can convert the XP machine also and save on the upgrade/update treadmill.

Piracy of Windows is a crime against us all

[einhverfr]

My basic theory (born out as I have seen in other countries):

Given a choice of free of charge software, people usually always pick those they perceive to be the industry leaders. When they have to pay for that software (especially when the real income equivalent, i.e. hours of labor to pay for it, is high), they have to slow down and ask what they need.

Piracy thus reduces the effective size of the total market. People aren't forced to decide whether to pay for new copies of the software, so they pick what they think is the path of least resistance. Add cost, and these people are brought back into the market and have to choose.

When I worked at Microsoft, I used to say that we had to do something about piracy because, "Piracy is anticompetitive and it hurts our competitors even more than it hurts us." I got a wide range of reactions from that statement. If there was no piracy of Windows, Microsoft *might* make a little more money. But I guarantee you, there would be a *lot* more Linux use out there too. Heck, there might even be more users of OS X...

I personally think we all need to do what we can to discourage software piracy. I think it is the greatest obstacle out there to the total dominance of open source software.

Re:I see the real problem here.

[Technician]

I betcha that this has everything to do with it... and you can't really move to Linux because not every Windows app is compatible with Linux. :\

On the flip side, not every Linux app is compatible with Windows. I have 3 Linux machines and one Windows machine. Incompatibility with Windows malware is the driving force here along with price. The Windows machine is for Windows programs. The Linux machines are for web, media, and learning. Nero incompatibility with Linux is not an issue since making, burning, editing ISO's is built in the OS. For media, it is the best DVD player. Putting in a movie, plays the movie, not bombard you with adverts, warnings, and menu's some of which break basic functions such as exiting to the movie or menu. If I want special features or the menu or warnings, I can go to them after the movie thank you.

The more I use Linux, the more I find what is missing Windows.

Re:Which games?

[DeadChobi]

I seem to recall that last time ATI released "open source" drivers, it was just an open source wrapper around a binary driver.

And All the emulators you've named will generally require piracy to be of any use. Linux needs more developers selling Linux compatible games.

Of course they were buying software!

[twitter]

These people were not buying "M$" products to begin with, so please explain to us simple people how this "backslash" means "M$" is going to lose?

If you had read the article, you would have seen that M$ thinks the vendors are important. If things work there as they do here, they are right.

M$ is nothing without the support network everyone else provides. These 350 shops are their mainstay, for both their sales volume and their recommendations and fixes. Even here in the US, where people have enough money to buy new systems M$ would sink if it were not for the many local people who keep those virused out boxes running. The rub is that they are not making enough money from their sales to justify the $5,000 fines M$ would like to drop on them. That's not to say M$ was not making money - selling twenty five cent CDs in a plastic box for one or two hundred bucks makes enough to fund their billion dollar a month advert attack and put money in their own pockets.

Compare it to Gandhi's Salt March to Dandi
That's ridiculous and insulting to all Indians, I'm sure.

No, their banding together to fight is admirable and puts US mom and pop shops to shame. M$ has pulled the same kinds of game here in the land of the free and no one has ever stood up to them. Those people, more than Dell, HP and others, are who makes M$ rich.

Interesting ethical situations here

[geek2k5]

There are some interesting ethical situations here.

While the 'selfless' act helps the customer directly, it robs the producer of what is being 'selflessly' given away, whether it is Microsoft, or a small software company. The people doing the distributing may be gaining 'karma' points on one side but are losing them on the other side of the transaction.

The excuse of not being able to afford the 'real' product because of discrepancies in income between the United States and other countries has a lot of bearing here. In today's globalized world you need to keep up with current tech in order to succeed. If you can't afford it, then copying it can almost be rationalized.

The rationalization falls apart when you reach the point that you want your own products protected on the global market. It is hard to demand IP protection when you are not doing a good job of protecting other people's products.

To add another level of complexity to things, consider the fact that a lot of software businesses in the United States are creating service and research centers in places like India. While I trust that the businesses are buying legitimate copies of Windows and other software, are they keeping track of what their employees and subcontractors are doing? While these people may be making a lot more than the average citizen of India, the temptation of getting something 'free' might outweigh the ethically correct action of paying for it. (Of course there may be reduced cost programs that get hardware with legitimate software to this subgroup. But being in the United States, I don't hear of them.)

Ideally, everybody should be held to the same ethical standards, with allowances for all types of income discrepancies. Perhaps software, movies, music and other IP products should be priced based on personal income by country, with limits on what you can own based on what you earn. If you want more, you need to earn more, relative to the personal income ranges of your country.

It is something to think about that will continue to be a problem until all people world wide have similar income ranges.