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Microsoft Cuts Vista Price To $66 In China

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the everybody-wants-a-piece dept.

narramissic writes "Microsoft this week cut the retail price of Windows Vista Home Basic in China by 67% — from 1,521 renminbi to 499 renminbi ($65.80). This is a steep discount compared to what users in the US and elsewhere are charged for the software. The reason for the price reduction? Battling piracy, of course. The new pricing 'narrows the price gap between original versions of Microsoft's software and pirated copies,' making it that much easier for consumers to 'do the right thing.'"

9 of 260 comments (clear)

  1. Yeah, but everyone steals Ultimate.... by tjstork · · Score: 5, Insightful

    IT's silly, why pay $66 bucks for a copy of watered down Dista when you can steal Ultimate? I mean, if you are in a country that has no IP enforcment, why not just steal the best one?

    --
    This is my sig.
  2. More Piracy? by stars_are_number_1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Does this mean we need more piracy in the US to bring the price down?

    1. Re:More Piracy? by TubeSteak · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Does this mean we need more piracy in the US to bring the price down? I doubt that would work.
      Piracy is incredibly pervasive in Asia
      Microsoft is using the carrot, because they don't control the stick.

      In the USA, Microsoft has the stick firmly in hand (in the form of lawsuits, the BSA, politicians, and law enforcement) and only occassionaly dangles carrots (in the form of discounts to specific groups).
      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
    2. Re:More Piracy? by QuietLagoon · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Does this mean we need more piracy in the US to bring the price down?

      It does show that a monopoly results in consumers paying a ridicuously high price for the merchandise.

  3. Relative to Income by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So what is that, like 2 months of a person's income there?

    Reduce it to two or three day's income like it is here for the average person. Then you'll hit the point where they can afford it instead of stealing it.

  4. Re:So, logically, we should all pirate software by Walpurgiss · · Score: 5, Insightful

    MS does it in China; yet here in the western world, the software companies use piracy as an excuse to need to raise prices. (To recoup alleged losses from e-shrink)

  5. Re:Let's follow their lead by cashman73 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I hate to say it, but,... even "pirated Windows Vista" is still "Windows Vista",... you're better off sticking with Windows XP, ... or MacOS X ... or Linux.

  6. The good side of Piracy... by tgatliff · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So are we saying there is a good side to piracy? Shocking!! You mean the music industry could have just reduced their prices to compete with piracy instead of sueing every single person?

  7. Because stealing is a crime by jesterzog · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I mean, if you are in a country that has no IP enforcment, why not just steal the best one?

    Perhaps because in China, stealing is still treated as a serious crime, and is often (I think) enforced quite heavily. A better course of action for people in China would be to infringe on the copyright, which is not seriously enforced.

    Unless, of course, you've fallen into the semantics of the stop-copyright-infringement lobby groups, who would love it if everyone saw the complicated artificial legal definition of copyright infringement as being equivalent to horrible crime of stealing. In that case, yes, they should steal the best one.