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BusinessWeek Advocates Microsoft Piracy
xzvf writes "In a lengthy editorial, BusinessWeek advocates allowing users in China and India to pirate Microsoft software so that it can obtain the same level of market share there as it has in the US and Europe. From the piece: 'If Microsoft succeeds in discouraging piracy of Windows in China and India, it is far more likely to drive the user of the pirated software into the Linux camp than it is to steer them into the land of paid-up Windows users. Microsoft's IP management strategy in China and India should instead focus on securing the victory of Windows on the desktops of all PC users. That may require deliberately lax enforcement efforts against pirated copies of Windows for the short and medium term. Only after the Linux threat lessens might Microsoft have the luxury of tightening up piracy protections, as it is now doing in the West. Microsoft can afford to be patient.'"
This isn't news. MS has already (unofficially) said they'd rather India and China used their software illegally than use the competition.
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http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.
More like, get them using your product, get them hooked, and then milk them for the next 50 years.
Like selling crack.
Back in the late 80's/early 90's, a tremendous amount of not-paid-for copies of DOS were floating about. MS didn't really bitch too much because it was getting everyone hooked on their product and making itself the defacto standard for an operating system (because, at the time, everyone wanted an IBM-compatible computer -- and, that meant DOS.)
Then, once everyone depended on it heavily, they started trying to lock it down.
In this case, the author is arguing that in huge emerging markets, you're better off letting everyone start using it rather than risk them running something else. Imagine if the home-grown Chinese Linux distro became dominant instead of Windows -- that's a hell of a lot of people who won't be your customers in the future.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
..it pays to R past the end of TFA sometimes:
Henry Chesbrough is Executive Director of the Center for Open Innovation at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. He is the author of Open Business Models: How to Thrive in the New Innovation Landscape (Harvard Business School Press, 2006). He is an authority on open innovation, open business models, and more open approaches to intellectual property management.
'twas a masterful troll Mr. Chesbrough. Jonathan Swift would be proud.
Like Bill Gates needs to take business lessons from Businessweek:
"Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software," he said. "Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."
CNET News.com, July 2, 1998
Actually, they do
It's a common strategy. It's how Pagemaker/Indesign, Photoshop, AutoCAD, Office and Windows got to where they are. They used either no protection or very weak protection (product code 1112-11111111 anyone?), and turned a blind eye to people sharing the software, and once people get hooked on the products, they EOL the old versions and put heavy activation processes (and very high prices--almost $500 for a fucking office suite??) on the current versions.
Kubuntu.
Next!
Pirate Party UK
http://news.com.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html?tag=l h