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Microsoft Kills Office Anti-Piracy Program
CWmike writes "Microsoft last week killed the Office Genuine Advantage anti-piracy service that first checked — and later nagged — whether customers were running legal copies of Office. ZDNet blogger Ed Bott first reported on Microsoft's move after a tipster pointed him toward a support document on the company's site. That Dec. 17 document simply noted that Office Genuine Advantage 'has been retired,' but offered no explanation. A Microsoft spokeswoman told Computerworld on Monday, 'The program has served its purpose and thus we have decided to retire the program.'"
They probably were more interested in discovering how many pirated copies might be out there rather than thwarting them. Microsoft has always been about market share even if they have to give it way to get it. They practically encouraged people to pirate Windows in the 3.x days.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
It cost money to maintain and stopped no one. There is no point to it.
My theory is that they are scrapping it because it worked. If it works, people can't run their pirated copy of Office whatever, and instead of running out to the store like a good little lemming to buy the latest MS Office. They instead go and download OpenOffice, LibreOffice, or just start using Google Apps.
LibreOffice is good enough for me.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
Did they mean there’s no longer any advantage to using Genuine Office?
Distributed Denial of APK: It takes 15 seconds to reply to him anonymously, but wastes tons of his time if we all do it.
Yeah, I feel like what has been happening is that individual users who aren't going to be paying money for business software on their personal machine anyway (like myself), were responding to Genuine Advantage by adopting OpenOffice rather than sticking with MS Office.
As individual users move towards OO, small businesses move towards OO. As OO gets more common, more people feel like OO is an acceptable option. You see where I'm going with this.
Seems like it would be better for Microsoft to keep users on MS Office than push them off MS Office altogether.
How about they kill activation too while they are at it, especially for VLK licensees? Why businesses have to bounce machines off of MS's activation servers when they will end up getting rebuilt anyway, or have to set up core MAK servers for six month activations at a time is insane. A business is under the barrel of the BSA anyway, so they won't be pirating Windows/Office (at least if they want to stay in business after firing an employee who rats them out.)
OGA/WGA/activation is pointless. It annoys the legit users while the pirates are happily ignoring it.
I think that Google Docs, for better or for worse, will end up having a bigger impact than OpenOffice (or any forks thereof): it comes from a recognizeable 'brand name' and it's got an interface that people are reasonably familiar with. It also "just works"--nothing to install or configure or whatnot.
When it comes down to the end user, that's going to be one of the biggest criteria for what platform to adopt--and if it were a choice between google docs and MS Office, most people I know would pick the cheaper and easier option.
Besides, MS doesn't package Office with Windows--but they do package 'the internet'.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
I don't have $149, and am neither a student nor Canadian.
I'll stick with a competing product that works and costs less, thank you.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
You know, its funny how these Slashdot articles line up with work.
I just got back from a weeks vacation to learn that we have an upcoming Microsoft Audit here in January. They're going to be viewing our server licenses, office, all that kind of stuff. We're not too concerned since we purchase these things OEM bundled all nice and tidy, but on the odd occaison where a re-install of Windows was necessary and the Office Product key lost, we had this neat version of Office 2003 that didn't need a key to install, imagine that.
On top of that - we actually have about 150 thousand dollars worth of Client Access Licenses in use on our exchange server that aren't paid for, JUST in our disabled accounts (whose email store we haven't removed since the CEO wants to be able to access them at a moments notice, and we just started the process of archiving them a couple months ago).
I have told my boss numerous times that we could have switched to OpenOffice or LibreOffice long ago. Almost no retraining really required, the layout is largely the same. No licensing fees. But he pushes back that what they are paying for is insurance. When something doesn't work between MS Office versions he can blame Microsoft. Perfect deflection. He doesn't want to be the guy who made everyone switch off Microsoft and then be expected to fully support it more than MS Office. Its alright, he has his reasons. I don't blame him. I would take the flak and argue the savings - I've personally had enough trouble just getting MS Office to work properly I couldn't see any of the other products possibly being any worse (Especially since OpenOffice can now be deflected to Oracle, Huzzah!).
I -WISH- my company was a large account that threatened to go somewhere else if Microsoft kept nagging us... My coworkers say that what'll probably happen is that the guy will come in, survey, ask for a dollar amount, the company will write a cheque, and IT won't get Christmas bonuses this year.
Time to look for a new place to work? Yeah it's going through our (the IT Department's) minds quite a bit. Resumes in hand.
That's not really true. Microsoft has always been strongly against piracy.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article2098235.ece "It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not," the Microsoft co-founder and chairman told Fortune magazine.
http://blogs.computerworld.com/node/2803
WSJ: But those were stolen, correct?
Gates: Stolen's a strong word. It's copyrighted content that the owner wasn't paid for. So yes.
Hey, Steve, just because you broke into Xerox’s store before I did and took the TV doesn’t mean I can’t go in later and steal the stereo.”
–Bill Gates
“In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and I fished out listings of their operating systems.” –Bill Gates
Bill Gates on Piracy: "They'll get addicted, and then we'll collect"
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
If you try to run a Terminal Server without your own license, it won't be anywhere near as easy as running Windows or Office. It shows they know how to lock down software when they want to.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
..... I have told my boss numerous times that we could have switched to OpenOffice or LibreOffice long ago.....But he pushes back that what they are paying for is insurance. When something doesn't work between MS Office versions he can blame Microsoft. Perfect deflection.
Has he ever read MS's EULA? If it breaks, you can blame Microsoft (just like you can blame Oracle if Open Office breaks), but you can't ask for any reparations. You have no better protection against broken code with Microsoft than you do with freed software -- Actually Microsoft is worse.
Going with Microsoft, you're not allowed to look at the broken code, much less fix it nor are you allowed to sue them for the costs of broken code -- even if you can prove negligence... and, on top of that, you have to deal with things like license audits that will cost you random amounts of money on top of their 'insurance' fees. With freed software, you still don't have the rights of suing for broken code, but you do have the right to (pay someone to) look at the broken code and fix it. At that point Even if the product's originator (Oracle, in this case) doesn't like your fix, you can always keep a (not so) private fork with your improvements. Try and do that with Micorosoft Office code.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Most people weren't going to Open Office - they simply put up with the nagging - because in the end the nagging was less annoying than using Open Office.
My computer like a few came with MSO pre-installed. I didn't mind the initial legit check (I still have the licence key) and subsequent download of updates. It's when a few months later it asked, nay, demanded to check again. Later I opened a document and it asked again, and again, and again so on and so forth. An e-mail natter back and forth with someone whose spelling could be better at Microsoft help got me nowhere. "Have you entered the correct licence key?" "Have you un-installed and re-installed, then re-entered the licence key?" There must be something better I thought. So I gave Open Office a try. A free office program? It must be a bit naff, full of bugs I thought. Well I was surprised, I've had no problems with it and it covers all my needs. I haven't looked back since.
The goal with MS's stuff has always been to find distributors who are committing fraud. While I'm sure they don't mind stopping individuals doing casual piracy, they realize that'll never happen on a large scale. So the real objective is stores ripping people off.
What you discover is that still around half of all computers sold are done by small shops. May have shrunk some since I last checked stats, but it is a lot. People go to their local computer store and get a PC built. Fine and well. The problem is some of these shops decided to pad their bottom line by handing out pirated software. They don't tell their customers, of course. You think you are getting a legit Windows license and aren't.
So MS started WGA to combat that. Well when WGA tripped, if you called MS, they asked you questions regarding where you got Windows, and then issued you a legit license (had to do this at a client's site). What they were after is who is handing this stuff out. If they get a bunch of information that indicates a given store is doing it, then they can go after them. They apparently had success with this.
Well my guess is that what they've found is that stores are not doing this with Office. They implemented it, hoping to have the same kind of thing happen, but have found that stores are not doing it.
Makes sense. Most people, when the buy Office, buy it as an addon to the system. You pay a specific price for it. However Windows is an assumed part of the price of a computer. So in the case of Windows easy for a small business to decide they want to just not pay and pad their margins (or reduce the price to make it more attractive). Less likely with something sold as a separate addon.
The problem is that people [buy a copy of Microsoft Office just for Outlook] instead of using an e-mail client instead.
Does the e-mail client have an appointment calendar? For example, are Thunderbird users aware of Lightning, a version of Sunbird packaged as a T-bird extension? There's a reason that Outlook's icon is a clock, and not just because the rim and hands spell "OL". And can it connect to Exchange at work, where IT has disabled standards-based connection protocols for nebulous "security reasons"?
I work in a small office (My own!!). My partner is a thumbfisted computer user, take Excel off his computer and he usually would use it as a lamp. BUT, after I installed Thunderbird+ lightning + shared gmail calendar, he was hooked.
Training time: 0
His happy face when he clicked his way to setting up a shared event: priceless
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
I expect a huge fight between Microsoft and the corporations over whether or not the original license allows them to use the product on a virtual machine. The compromise is going to be one last payment to Microsoft to regularize the licenses and that would be the last golden egg laid by the MsOffice goose. After that it will be cooked I suppose.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact