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Vista Pirates To Get "Black Screen of Darkness"
jcatcw writes "Microsoft has just turned on Reduced Functionality mode, worldwide, and sent a letter to OEMs explaining the consequences of Vista piracy. These include a black screen after 1 hour of browsing, no start menu or task bar, and no desktop. Using fear as a motivator, the email warns resellers to 'make sure your customers always get genuine Windows Vista preinstalled.'"
The year of linux is every year since 1992, just for different people. You can of course argue that from year to year, the group of people linux appeals to is getting larger and larger and that in 2007 the difference compared to the previous year is exceptionally large and I'd be inclined to agree with you.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
two months ago i bought a Thinkpad T61 it came with 2 gigs of Ram and Vista Ultimate.
Being a daily slashdot reader i knew that 4 gigs was the "sweet spot" silly me, i thought that Vista would still work.
I spent 6 hours trying to printer share from Vista to XP.
I spent 3-4 hours reading forums and turning off all the crap services in hopes of speeding it up.
I finally gave up and this very minute I am installing XP recovery CD's thankfully given to me from IBM.
My harddrive light never went off in Vista, it was always blinking.
When i called IBM to complain they said to buy more ram. Of course the damn thing came with 2 slots each filled with 1 gig sticks, now WTF aim i supposed to do with thoes when i go out and buy two 2 gig sticks? what a waste of fucking money.
and then said that SP1 wasnt coming out till 2008.
My Theory
1- MS did this in purpose.
2- This is, or should be, criminal.
Its the same thing they did with WindowsME,
The More Knowledge you have the Luckier you Get- J.R. Ewing
Actually, it's also "fraud", or "dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception", depending on your local criminal code.
I can't believe that 400 posts in this thread fail to mention that this is a hoax.
European Linux user, living in Antwerp
Clever marketing. Microsoft dorks them and you get to be the hero. The PR value is priceless.
:) Bothers me I didn't think of it on my own...but I'll get over it.
:)
That's the plan! Actually, the referrals that we pass on from the "good business" freebies could be very profitable, so there's more than just a simple "return customer" PR perspective there. Nothing better than one CEO saying to another "This company actually downgraded all our new accounting PCs from Vista for free, and they're running so much better."
We can't count on Microsoft but we can always count on good 'ol Adam. It's a good investment in time because I've got money someone says, "Hey, since you're here, can you look at..." which are the magic words that mean you get the bill the call anyway.
Actually, if it was minimal work, I'd probably cover that, too. Some clients LOVE seeing freebie invoices, especially since the freebies always say "September 10, 2007: $620, Discount: $-620" But of course there are always issues beyond that service call that would bring more cash into the near-future than we'd lose.
Keeps your face fresh around the office, you can schmooze while you're working, talk to them about alternative operating systems...it's a great idea. One that I fully intend to shamelessly copy.
Here's another one for you that worked for some subsidiaries I helped start:
Take the going market rate for small-sized businesses (5-50 desktops, 1-3 servers) and nuke $5-$10 an hour off of it. If the going rate is $80-$120, charge $75-$110. Offer a $10/hour preferred-bonus on all hours billed, and place that bonus on your monthly invoices. If your invoice is for $1500 one month, $1200 the other and $2000 the third, the third month's invoice would say "Bonus Available: $440" Include with your invoice a small catalog of bonus options and let the customer use their bonuses to purchase them (for the business, for their home, etc).
The subsidiary that did this increased their market share significantly over just the first 3 months of me working with them. The bonus hardware was offered at MSRP, so the actual bonus dollars only cost them $3-$6 per hour, and the bonus hardware was not covered under any labor warranty, which increased the service/maintenance cost over 3 years to cover double to triple the cost of the hardware. If I remember correctly, one customer (a headhunter) replaced their entire workstation and server network (maybe 10 machines and 1 server) in 2 years with "free" bonus hardware, and the CEO got a laptop for his kid for college "free" also. Net profit dropped only 3% versus expected profit, because gross billing was way up due to the bonuses.
The new subsidiary I am starting in Northern Illinois will be taking the idea to the home support group (sort of like geek squad, without the geeks, focused on home networks of CEOs and management types who have terrible luck getting their in-house guy to come over). "Free" stuff like Tivos, restaurant dining certificates, and golfing certificates should do very well in the 5 areas I'm hoping to target.
When people in IT complain to me that there isn't a lot of work, I just have to shrug. There's work at every price tier we investigated: from the $40/hour consulting monkey (no offense) to the $300/hour consulting guru. The problem is marketing: don't be a geek, be a business owner. Don't be a geek, be a parent. Don't be a geek, be a music nut. I'll never understand the lack of inspiration in the IT field, if we took most of our ideas nationally, there'd be huge profits ahead. Too bad I'm too A.D.D. to focus on a national roll-out
Good luck!