FYI: The Chinese has found a way to improve KMS activation !!

[Janet Chen]

FYI - The smart Chinese !! (KMS piracy updated)

The Chinese KMS servers are still running...
One of the KMS servers, vbs.net.cn, according to the owner, has activated
more than 20,000 clients in last 30 days.
"The server is always busy. A client may have to try over and over again to
get his Vista Business or Vista Enterprise activated." she said.

What's new now?
She found a better way to solve the heavy traffic problem and prevent the
activation go abroad.
"My intention is to provide free Vista to citizens in China"
"I believe that Microsofts' policies in software piracy are being applied
differently in China and rest of the world."

Here is the update -
A Chinese user who wants to activate his Vista Enterprise or Vista Business,
should first visit the website, http://vbs.net.cn to view the current port
number of the KMS server, vbs.net.cn
The port number will get changed in every 30 min automatically.

For example...
say.. 2006-12-29 23.00 - 23.29, vbs.net.cn:7301
then 2006-12-29 23.30 - 23.59, vbs.net.cn:1465
then 2006-12-30 00.00 - 00.29, vbs.net.cn:7249
and so on...

In addition, the website http://vbs.net.cn , according to the owner, only
allows domestic IP to access...
*****
Problem solved !!
Microsoft should now be happy about this...
Market share (vs Linux), is more important than revenue in China.

 

[Dale]

You're saying that Microsoft is taking the marketing stand of losing $100 on
each one but make it up in volume? Hmmmm. Doesn't sound too good for
Microsoft shareholders.

Dale

 

[Mike]

You're saying that Microsoft is taking the marketing stand of losing $100
on each one but make it up in volume? Hmmmm. Doesn't sound too good for
Microsoft shareholders.

Long term, it's a win for MS. Better for Windows to gain market share than
Linux.

Mike

 

[Dale]

Only if market share = revenue.

Dale

Long term, it's a win for MS. Better for Windows to gain market share
than Linux.

Mike

 

[xfile]

"In PC industry, market share is everything" - Andy Grove.

 

[Mike]

Only if market share = revenue.

No. Market share is everything. With market share comes mind share,
with mind share comes developers, with developers come apps, with apps come
users.

Microsoft has *always* understood this. Long term, it's better that China
uses Windows than something else, even if they are not paying. It
increases the size and stability of the Windows Ecosystem.

Mike

 

[Dustin]

It depends. You lose the $$ on the initial sale, but once the
groundwork is there, it's easier to charge for upgrades or a new form
of WGA to force users to go legit. It could be a good thing for future
revenue. Better late $$ than no $$ by sending them to the competition.

 

[Dale]

Ok, sure.

No. Market share is everything. With market share comes mind share,
with mind share comes developers, with developers come apps, with apps
come users.

Microsoft has *always* understood this. Long term, it's better that
China uses Windows than something else, even if they are not paying. It
increases the size and stability of the Windows Ecosystem.

Mike

 

[Dale]

I don't know about your grocer, but mine has a cash register and not a
market share register.

Dale

 

[Mike]

Ok, sure.

Good to see you have come around and agree.

Mike

 

[Mike]

I don't know about your grocer, but mine has a cash register and not a
market share register.

I don't know about your grocer, but mine wants more market share. More
market share means he needs more cash registers.

Mike

 

[xfile]

Don't compare your wisdom of a grocery store with those long-term billion
dollars revenue.

If you can't comprehend it, no more explanations will be needed.

 

[Dale]

The idea that market share equates to revenue to share holders is just
ludicrous. Respond if you will but there's no sense me trying to make you
see the obvious.

Dale

 

[Dale]

Actually, I do have one more thing to say. If it is all about market share
and not sales, why not give it away free in France? France is in the middle
of a mini-rebellion against Microsoft. Or for that matter, why not give it
away for free to everyone?

Where I work, we have about 50% SQL Servers and 50% Oracle. Why not give
away SQL Server for free and get more market share?

Why? Because, in the end, you have to have revenue. Not market share.

Dale

 

[Mike]

The idea that market share equates to revenue to share holders is just
ludicrous. Respond if you will but there's no sense me trying to make you
see the obvious.

OK, so I'll try to make *you* see the obvious.

If Windows was the only product MS had, then you would have a point.

However, it is not. MS has lots of products, and lots of money. It's
better in the long run to lose money now and kill the competition, than to
let the competition grow.

You have to take the long term view.

Mike

 

[Dale]

Give away 2 billion copies of Windows in order to drive off the competition
in a market where they already own 95%?

 

[Mike]

Where I work, we have about 50% SQL Servers and 50% Oracle. Why not give
away SQL Server for free and get more market share?

Why? Because, in the end, you have to have revenue. Not market share.

Because in the end, market share produces revenue. Now that you have the
OS, you need apps (Office), services (Windows Live), mice and keyboards, dev
tools (Visual Studio), drivers, peripherals, and on and on.

Besides, we are talking about China here. They are not going to buy it
anyways. It's better to have them use *your* product for free instead of
not at all, at the expense of the *other* product's market share.

If you are Microsoft, which would you rather have - a billion Chinese using
(free) Windows (and all associated
apps/drivers/peripherals/support/services) or a billion Chinese using (free)
Linux? The short term loss produces big gains in the long term, and also
just happens to have the side benefit of hurting your competition. Which
itself is a *huge* gain!

Stop thinking short term. Even if China never sends one dollar to
Microsoft, the gain is in not having Linux get a billion new users. Which
would mean lots of new apps/drivers/peripherals/support/services for Linux.
Which makes Linux more attractive in places where Microsoft has paying
customers.

Again, market share is *everything*.

Mike

 

[Janet Chen]

Microsoft was taking Double standards on piracy issues in China and the rest
of the world.

For XP, as long as a Volume License Key doesn't leak out of the territory of
Mainland China, it's fine with Microsoft.
The problem now is that the leaked Chinese VLKs get spread all over the
world, a kid in France may using a Chinese VLK.
That's what Microsoft doesn't want to see...

The coming up new version of WGA comes with a feature called "Geographically
blocked PID",
that may solve the problem, let the Chinese having a free VLK and at the
same time block them from being used in other regions.

Secondly, the annoying WGA Notification (KB905474) never apply to Simplified
Chinese Windows XP !!
At a foreign company in a city in China, the foreign boss asking, "Why
there's such a WGA Nofitifcation (KB905474) intrude my
English-language/Japanese/Korean/German Windows XP?? But our staff members
using Simplified Chinese Windows never get this update??? "

For Vista, I believe that if those Chinese KMS servers, from now on,
keep low-profile instead of yelling over the Internet "LOOK, We've got many
KMS servers for worldwide activation!!",
AND do something to keep their KMS activations for domestic use. That should
be fine with Microsoft.

 

[Mike]

Give away 2 billion copies of Windows in order to drive off the
competition in a market where they already own 95%?

Yes. That prevents the competition from growing.

Mike

 

[Lucvdv]

The idea that market share equates to revenue to share holders is just
ludicrous. Respond if you will but there's no sense me trying to make you
see the obvious.

Sorry, but I've got a different opinion about who's not seeing the
obvious.

More cash now, but less market share = much less cash later.

Less cash now, but more market share = much more cash later.


Why do you think they started with WPA only _after_ building up a
virtual monopoly? They would never have become who they are if Gates
had invented WPA in 1970.
(Casual) piracy has always paid off later, but today's piracy doesn't
pay off in future sales anymore because they already own the market,
so it has to stop now.


Why do you think they started selling academic licenses at what are,
compared to normal licensing, ridiculously low prices?
Students have always been the most prolific casual copiers, but MS
know what it rendered them in the long term.

It's the move of a genius: make them pay just a symbolic amount now so
they don't run off to the competition, at the same time they're
getting used to paying for software so there's less of a shock effect
(meaning less tendency for piracy) later when they have to pay the
full amount.

Look at what students are using today, and you'll see what the world
will be using in 10 years (and currently it looks like MS is going to
lose a *lot* of market share to linux if they don't fight hard at the
educational level now).