News - Microsoft’s Ballmer goes toe-to-toe with Chinese President over piracy

[aidanjt]

Ah yes, those big companies with the massive profits we keep hearing about. I mean didn't they almost turn over $30M, wow.

I am certain that all the microsoft stock holders are wishing that they had that kinda revenue.

The question wasn't whether they turn over billions in profits, but whether the business model is feasible.

[Astridax93]

+1 to spoon. The only reason I have the hunk of junk that is windows is due to steam. If I could get steam on linux with all my games then I would. Linux is a far better built OS, performance, stability and customisation wise and its free! Being open source it also tends to be more innovative. Microsoft have the monopoly that is Directx. The sooner game devs move to opengl the better.
Also yes I agree with aidanjt, it is far too expensive for the chinese market. Would you be willing to pay £1000 just to make your computer comparable with everyone elses. I feel the chinese government know this and turn a blind eye.

[Splash]

What are you suggesting dude?

You say it's junk, then you make a thinly veiled reference to pirating it. You *need* it for games? Why not just get a games console?

I can understand people's suggestions that the OS *could* be cheaper, but frankly it's Microsoft's product and it's up to them to charge what they feel the market will bear. Canonical, Red Hat etc make their money in support agreements which is absolutely fine, but their is an entirely different business model.

Essentially if I were a software developer I'd want to be able to pay my bills, feed my family and the like from my efforts. Microsoft have to be able to pay their devs and make as much profit as they can for their shareholders or they're failing as a company, and someone else will take their mantle.

As for Astridax - take a look at this link. Steam *can* run under Linux. You're not going to persuade game companies to buy into opengl over directx by supporting directx, are you?

[aidanjt]

I can understand people's suggestions that the OS *could* be cheaper, but frankly it's Microsoft's product and it's up to them to charge what they feel the market will bear.

That's the point, the market isn't bearing it. The market considers it to be excessively expensive, and thus it's turning to illegitimate sources to acquire it at a price it considers more reasonable.

Imagine if Windows 7 cost £1,200. Would you pay for it? I know I sure as hell wouldn't. That's effectively what Microsoft is demanding from Chinese customers. Frankly I'm surprised the piracy rate is only 90%.

[Astridax93]

You say it's junk, then you make a thinly veiled reference to pirating it. You *need* it for games? Why not just get a games console?

As for Astridax - take a look at this link. Steam *can* run under Linux. You're not going to persuade game companies to buy into opengl over directx by supporting directx, are you?

Half of this response is true, half of it is false. First of all I know I can run steam under linux using wine. However, it isn't anywhere near as stable since they are having to use their own implementations of the windows and directx api. Which to be fair, since they are closed source, they have done a bloody good job! However they are still missing this compatibility and stability.

Several reasons I hate consoles:
1) The graphics on a console will never be as good as my computer, since I can update it .

2) Console games are so expensive. Why do I love steam, several reasons, but the most major one is their awesome sales! I managed to spend around £60 and get around 40+ games with that. Like hell could I have done this on a console. However developers still get a decent wage. On TF2 when the new Mann Co store opened, the developers of 2 hats both earned $40K in one week, just from royalties. However the cost to the consumer was round ~£5-10. Steam sales make the developers loads of money, since when could each Command and Conquer 3 for £3 on XBL or on disk? So from this argument we can draw, you will make more sales from the impulse buy price of £1-30. Than £150-300. Granted Microsoft shouldn't be selling it for £1, however I did buy it from the student discount for £30. That was far more acceptable than paying £200 for a boxed Pro copy. Piracy tends to stop when a fair market price is charged for the target market.

3) Steam is better implemented and integrated than even, dare I say it, XBL.

[Biscuit]

piracy doesnt stop for any price, there will always be people who download it and crack it even if it was priced at a pound. I think lower pricing would definitely help but as i said in my earlier post, its a game of minimizing damages.

[Astridax93]

Of course there is always going to be somebody who will. But I'd say you'd get that piracy rate down to 1-2% if you made windows within the purchasable limits of one to two days wages for the average Chinese worker.

[Nelsaidi]

So what you're saying is that Windows is overpriced, and any more than free is overpriced. I don't think that business model is going to work too well.

Nope, I'm saying charging 100 pounds for a home edition. isn't, I paid 50 pounds for my pc from the recorder price and 30 pound studen price for my laptop and I am happy with that price, but for double that I probably would not have not bought it twice, let alone once.

Everyone will have a differenn

[Zhaoman]

Of course there is always going to be somebody who will. But I'd say you'd get that piracy rate down to 1-2% if you made windows within the purchasable limits of one to two days wages for the average Chinese worker.

This is exactly it. 1000 yuan is more than a month's wages for the average worker and as a business it just wouldn't make sense to have to spend more than a month's wages just to set up an OS for an employee's computer. Microsoft can either suck it up and continue like this, or they will have to reduce prices if they want to reduce piracy in China. There is little the government can, or will want, to do until that happens.

[MSIC]

The other issue with this though is that many people view Windows as a requirement for a working (non-mac) PC. This is music to MS ears, but obviously something that they must be acutely aware of if they try to push anti-piracy measures too hard. Since a legit copy of Windows is clearly disproportionate to wages (from what everyone here is saying anyway, i havent seen the evidence myself) then they risk pushing regular chinese PC users towards free, legitimate and decent Operating Systems such as Ubuntu et al.
And if those OSes ever gain market traction, MS would be done for...

[Zhaoman]

According to the World Bank: "In 1985 average income in China was $293; in 2006 the average income is $2,025."

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTE...318950,00.html

So just over 1000 yuan a month sounds about right. Hopefully this gives the discussion some legitimacy

[Astridax93]

1,000.00 CNY = 94.9865 GBP

According to XE: http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert.cgi?Am...rom=CNY&To=GBP

This is before tax and everything else, although it is low anyway... happens to be why their economy is booming!

So basically you are paying 1 month's gross wage to get a copy of windows. Not likely to happen to be fair.

[miniyazz]

On TF2 when the new Mann Co store opened, the developers of 2 hats both earned $40K in one week, just from royalties. However the cost to the consumer was round ~£5-10. Steam sales make the developers loads of money, since when could each Command and Conquer 3 for £3 on XBL or on disk? So from this argument we can draw, you will make more sales from the impulse buy price of £1-30. Than £150-300. Granted Microsoft shouldn't be selling it for £1, however I did buy it from the student discount for £30. That was far more acceptable than paying £200 for a boxed Pro copy. Piracy tends to stop when a fair market price is charged for the target market.

That analogy doesn't work - Windows isn't 'impulse buy' software, and the dev and maintenance costs are much, much higher than for any game.

[JGJones]

You might want to check over your post, you're using Red Flag Linux and Red Hat Linux interchangeably - they are not the same thing.

Thanks, I realise that but ended up typing red hat by habit!

[aidanjt]

...the dev and maintenance costs are much, much higher than for any game.

As is the revenue, which they'd get more of if they stopped trying to swim against the rapids, and waste less dev man hours to boot.

[Astridax93]

That analogy doesn't work - Windows isn't 'impulse buy' software, and the dev and maintenance costs are much, much higher than for any game.

I understand that windows.isn't impulse buy. It was to proove a point that you don't need to charge huge amounts to make money. I however fail to see how microsoft get away with charging double the amount for the retail version over oem, which is already too expensive. Linux is free and yet more stable, with less bugs in the kernel. I'd rather have a free OS and pay for boxes/support if I needed it.