News - Microsoft fires warning to Windows 7 pirates

[MadduckUK]

once people see this on tv the ones not savvy will realise the mistake they have made.

why? will it suddenly stop working? how will they suddenly realise?

[Funkstar]

To combat this MS should do an ad stating 99% of PC's bought on Ebay have dodgy windows on them, once people see this on tv the ones not savvy will realise the mistake they have made.

You give the average person-that-buys-an-ebay-pc more credit than they are due.

[Yosh]

why? will it suddenly stop working? how will they suddenly realise?

Put on television or in magazines/papers with some blatant in your face marketing,will likely help people understand what they are buying into.

[Georgy291]

oh come on pirating windows 7? its free anyway

and besides i agree, paying £200 for vista is a bit over the top.

and im wanting to buy windows 7 when it comes out. as long as it stays to their promiced £50 mark

[HSK]

I doubt I'll buy it so to say when it comes out, instead, I think around then i'll be due a laptop upgrade, and will see whatever version is whacked on to it.

[davidcrofter]

True Vista was massively overpriced as will Windows 7 no doubt (as I don't see Mircrosoft turning into a charity overnight) ... but when you add on the effect of "Rip Off Britain" is it any wonder that games and software are being pirated in this country??

[Subnet1]

If its cheap enough and you can activate as many times as you like with the same serial then I will buy Windows 7 when it comes out.
I think it would be nice if Microsoft took an authorise approach similar to iTunes where you must authorise and deauthorise computers against your serial. Perhaps this could be done online with some sort of serial management website.

[Splash]

oh come on pirating windows 7? its free anyway

and besides i agree, paying £200 for vista is a bit over the top.

and im wanting to buy windows 7 when it comes out. as long as it stays to their promiced £50 mark

I paid around £130 for my Vista Ultimate OEM. Anyone who can afford to be building more than one new PC over a 3 year lifecycle is surely able to afford either a retail license (so they can transfer to a new build) or a new OEM license for the new build.

I also wouldn'd mind seeing a link to the source four your claim of a promised £50 price point, as I've sure not seen *any* price lists that are anything other than rumour.

[Splash]

If its cheap enough and you can activate as many times as you like with the same serial then I will buy Windows 7 when it comes out.
I think it would be nice if Microsoft took an authorise approach similar to iTunes where you must authorise and deauthorise computers against your serial. Perhaps this could be done online with some sort of serial management website.

You already *can* activate as many times as you like, there's no limit so long as you're activating within the terms of your license (ie original hardware for OEM, only one PC using retail). Though I suspect you're talking about spending money on one OEM license and installing on many PCs, which clearly ain't going to happen.

[Funkstar]

oh come on pirating windows 7? its free anyway

For the release candidate, and only for the time being. Remember, in March it starts shutting down ever two hours until June when it stops working all together.

[Saracen]

I agree with Kalniel - pricing isn't the issue. Oh, there'd be some effects at the margins, and a large reduction in price would probably result in an increase in sales, but by how much? And would it be economic to do it? Personally, I strongly suspect that if reducing price was to increase profitability, MS would have done it already. After all, why wouldn't they?

And you have to bear in mind that when you cut price, you're taking that price cut out of the profit but not reducing the costs. It's easy to say that if you cut the price of a £200 product by a third, you'll increase sales, and to a degree you probably will. But that £200 product only had £50 of profit in it, when you cut it by £66, you end up making a loss.

Do any of us know what the total costs of getting any MS product to the point where us consumers buy it is? Do we know what MS's fixed costs are? Do we know what product development costs are? What about the costs of ongoing support and bug fixes? After all, we don't pay for service packs, so the cost of that ongoing development work has to be amortised and factored in the the price at the point of sale, despite the costs not being incurred until what might be several years later.

And, of course, it's not just the cost that MS incur, but the enitre supply chain, including the profit making at each point.

I'd love to know what percentage of users on a site like this have fully legit and licensed software on their machines? Yet you'll find people have no trouble finding a couple of hundred quid for a processor, maybe more for a state of the art graphics card (just to play games, I might add), and even fancy cases, where a £20 job might not look as flash but would, in many situations, do the same job. But pay £200 for an OS? Nah!

And again, people say that cutting the cost of the OS would reduce piracy, but with the average music CD costing, what, £15 give or take a couple of quid, and DVDs costing not much more, they're probably the most widely pirated items on the planet. So spending a grand (or a LOT more) on a TV is something people will do, but many of those same people then pirate the music or films to use on it.


Price isn't the issue with piracy. The issue, like MPs "expenses" is that people do it because they think, generally correctly, that they'll get away with it.

People do it because they don't respect or care whether it's right or wrong, legal or illegal, only whether they'll get caught or not. And price doesn't impact on that.

If the chances of getting caught pirating stuff, be it OS or CD/DVD, were say 50%, and the fine you'd get if caugfht was £10,000, how much piracy would their be, regardless of whether we're talking about a £15 CD or a £200 OS? Very little, I bet.

If the chance of getting caught robbing a bank was 1 in 100 million, would we see an increase in bank robbery? Hell, I'd probably be nipping down to make a "withdrawal" myself?


So no, IMHO, cutting the price of Windows would have minimal effect on piracy levels. Some effect, no doubt, but minimal, unless the price cut was so huge as to make it very likely loss-making.

If you want to reduce or eliminate piracy, you either have to make it harder (or better yet, impossible), or increase the chances of getting found out and the penalty levels if you do. And the latter is difficult to achieve, but the way most likely to bear some fruit.

[kalniel]

Completely agree Saracen.

If you want to reduce or eliminate piracy, you either have to make it harder (or better yet, impossible), or increase the chances of getting found out and the penalty levels if you do. And the latter is difficult to achieve, but the way most likely to bear some fruit.

Not to mention that piracy of Windows actually hurts the competitors to Windows far more than it does Microsoft.

If people simply voted with their feet and refused to use Windows for price or whatever reason then Linux and any other competitors would flourish, eventually maybe getting to the point that MS would have to consider other business models that allowed them to get Windows to people for cheaper, or even free. However if people don't stop using Windows then there's nothing for the competitors to grow on, leaving MS in a dominant position and unlikely to change pricing.

[Percy1983]

I really can't see why people pirate windows, I am running vista home premium OEM which I got for £80. If I go with that being useful for 3 years then its around 7p a day. 7p a day for something I use everyday seems a very good deal to me. Nevermind the fact I don't have to worry about the whole cat and mouse game with microsoft (hack, microsoft patch, hack, microsoft patch etc)

Still not sure if I will move over to windows 7 just yet after messign with the beta, I am more than happy with with Vista for the time being. Lets be honest windows 7 should have just been a vista service pack.

[Georgy291]

And you have to bear in mind that when you cut price, you're taking that price cut out of the profit but not reducing the costs. It's easy to say that if you cut the price of a £200 product by a third, you'll increase sales, and to a degree you probably will. But that £200 product only had £50 of profit in it, when you cut it by £66, you end up making a loss.

i think your talking absolute rubbish here, A DVD costs £1 at most and box for it costs further £1 at most, so total production cost would not be more than a £5, and they charge £200 for it so a small price cut wouldnt harm them

and as for priceing off w7?

there was a hexus article few weeks back, they described expected costs, and they described expected editions to be released.

and as for piracy, main cause off it is high prices, if everything was priced desently and was avalible, then there would be no one bothered spending hours on it trying to crack it etc.

take HAWX for instance? is it really worth £30 its charged for atm? i played it over my friends house and i think its more off a £5 game at most. its way too short and is made to be a arcade game, how can you justify £30 for that? (just checked £34.99 on steam)

[1stfret]

You have to take into consideration development cost, marketing etc etc. Not just a matter of how much a DVD costs etc.

[Funkstar]

i think your talking absolute rubbish here, A DVD costs £1 at most and box for it costs further £1 at most, so total production cost would not be more than a £5, and they charge £200 for it so a small price cut wouldnt harm them

and as for priceing off w7?

Thats the physical cost. How about the cost of all those developers, support poeple, marketing, etc.

We are talking a bit more than £5 here

Oh, and thats why OEM is cheaper, not because it doesn't come in a box, but it comes with no direct support from Microsoft.