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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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

[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.

[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.

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.

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...

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?

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.

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?

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?

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.

Re:I dislike MS

[pembo13]

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

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.

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: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.

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.