Steal this O.S.

[Bruin]

Holy Smokes Redman! Don't you think you might have over-priced your new
O.S.??
Then to rub salt in the wound you make DX10 Vista ONLY!?!?!

Seriously. Since 1994 I have paid for eight different Microsoft operating
systems plus the one that came with my notebook. Currently in my home we
got five separate computers. Pricing was announced for Vista & I was quite
upset.

Are you guys INSANE?

No possible way will I be "upgrading" the machines in our home. I would
have to take out a second mortgage! After all these years of paying
through the nose for upgrade versions, staying nice & legal while friends
call me sucker, I am done. Not this time Billy.

 

[Rich]

No possible way will I be "upgrading" the machines in our home...

No possible way anyone cares what you do in your home.

Grow up

 

[Bruin]

No possible way anyone cares what you do in your home.

Grow up

Actually I would think that the marketing department at MS would have at
least minor interest in the opinion of one of customers.
My point is that the pricing of Vista encourages piracy. My opinion was
always that if MS would lower their prices, there would be less piracy. And
they significantly increased the cost with very little value added.

Imagine Mom&Pop computer shops. It was already tilted incredibly in the
favor of the large OEMs in that the cost of a single license of XP was so
expensive. With Vista, appears that they are going to increase that tilt.

 

[Alias]

Actually I would think that the marketing department at MS would have at
least minor interest in the opinion of one of customers.

Be real, WPA, WGA, WGA/N and SPP prove that Microsoft doesn't care one
whit for its customers, being as it assumes all are pirates until they
prove otherwise.

My point is that the pricing of Vista encourages piracy. My opinion was
always that if MS would lower their prices, there would be less piracy. And
they significantly increased the cost with very little value added.

Without piracy, Windows would not be in the monopoly position it is now.
Now that they have cornered the market, they want to stop piracy and
force customers to pay more and to prove, over and over again, that they
paid for it.

Imagine Mom&Pop computer shops. It was already tilted incredibly in the
favor of the large OEMs in that the cost of a single license of XP was so
expensive. With Vista, appears that they are going to increase that tilt.

MS doesn't care about Mom & Pop computer shops either. They care about
only ONE thing: the bottom line. The fact that their "anti piracy"
measures and DRM measures are chasing their paying customers over to
Solaris, Mac and Linux doesn't seem to phase them due to their
arrogance. The same thing happened to Rome.

Alias

 

[Troy McClure]

its called "business", dumbass. and if you were a CEO you would understnad.
but youre obviously a jealous child

 

[Alias]

its called "business", dumbass.

Is that what you call it? I call it *bad* business.

Now come even more insults:

and if you were a CEO you would
understnad [sic]. but youre [sic] obviously a jealous child

What is it about the business fanbois that they can't hole a dialog
without resorting to infantile insults?

Alias, who owns a business and believes in customer support, positive PR
and *good* business practices such as -- gasp! -- caring for the
customer or client.

 

[Bobby]

Be real, WPA, WGA, WGA/N and SPP prove that Microsoft doesn't care one

whit for its customers, being as it assumes all are pirates until they
prove otherwise.

No, it shows that they are trying to discourage piracy and make it less
convenient than buying a legitimate copy of their products. It's not perfect
but it's better than disabling millions of computers across the world (which
it could easily do).

Without piracy, Windows would not be in the monopoly position it is now.

It is true that the easy availability of Windows has made it hugely popular.
And made MS huge amounts of money. To paraphrase Gary Player: "The more
people pirate Microsoft products, the more money Microsoft makes." It
appears that Microsoft made a much smarter strategic decision in this regard
than Apple.

Now that they have cornered the market, they want to stop piracy and force
customers to pay more and to prove, over and over again, that they paid
for it.

It is also true that MS is trying to reduce piracy. But not stop it. Haven't
you noticed the availability of Vista on BitTorrent? I appreciate that these
versions only work for 30 days (and might be no more than a really smart
form of viral marketing on Microsoft's part) but it's easy to extend them
for a further 30, 60 or 90 days (that's 120 days in total) and various
websites claim to have work-arounds for Vista activation (I don't know if
these work or not).

MS doesn't care about Mom & Pop computer shops either. They care about
only ONE thing: the bottom line.

Well, all businesses care about the bottom line. But Microsoft is Snow White
compared to some IT companies (such as Apple).

Vista is a fabulous operating system. My one complaint is the pricing.
Microsoft has made OEM versions available at a reasonable price but I really
wish it had bit-the-bullet and slashed prices to something like $150 for
Ultimate and under $100 for the other versions. But who am I to advise the
most successful IT company in human history?

Bobby

 

[Roscoe]

Nice post, dumbass.

its called "business", dumbass. and if you were a CEO you would
understnad. but youre obviously a jealous child

 

[Alias]

Nice post, dumbass.

An insult is the best you can do?

Alias

 

[Alias]

No, it shows that they are trying to discourage piracy and make it less
convenient than buying a legitimate copy of their products. It's not
perfect but it's better than disabling millions of computers across the
world (which it could easily do).

Those programs only inconvenience paying customers and don't affect
piracy one iota.

It is true that the easy availability of Windows has made it hugely
popular. And made MS huge amounts of money. To paraphrase Gary Player:
"The more people pirate Microsoft products, the more money Microsoft
makes." It appears that Microsoft made a much smarter strategic decision
in this regard than Apple.

I wonder why Apples shares are worth three times more than Microsoft's.

It is also true that MS is trying to reduce piracy. But not stop it.
Haven't you noticed the availability of Vista on BitTorrent? I
appreciate that these versions only work for 30 days (and might be no
more than a really smart form of viral marketing on Microsoft's part)
but it's easy to extend them for a further 30, 60 or 90 days (that's 120
days in total) and various websites claim to have work-arounds for Vista
activation (I don't know if these work or not).

As soon as Vista is released to the public, the cracks will be out.

Well, all businesses care about the bottom line. But Microsoft is Snow
White compared to some IT companies (such as Apple).

If you care about the bottom line, you need to care about the people who
are buying your products. Saying someone else is worse does not make MS
better.

Vista is a fabulous operating system.

That remains to be seen.

My one complaint is the pricing.
Microsoft has made OEM versions available at a reasonable price but I
really wish it had bit-the-bullet and slashed prices to something like
$150 for Ultimate and under $100 for the other versions. But who am I to
advise the most successful IT company in human history?

Bobby

In its time the Roman Empire was the most successful. In its time the
Spanish Empire was the most successful. In its time the British Empire
was the most successful ...

Alias

 

[MICHAEL]

Those programs only inconvenience paying customers and don't affect piracy one iota.


I wonder why Apples shares are worth three times more than Microsoft's.

I agree with some of what you say, however, you don't know much about
stock values. Apple's shares are more per share basically because they have far
less issued. If you want to talk about overall market capitalization, then Apple
isn't even close to Microsoft. It's not even close in profit.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/snapshots/879.html
Microsoft
Market Value= $284 billion
Revenue= $39.7 billion
Profit= $12.2 billion

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/snapshots/114.html
Apple
Market Value= $55 billion
Revenue= $13.9 billion
Profit= $1.3 billion

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/basics/03/031703.asp
Calculating Market Cap
Market capitalization is just a fancy name for a straightforward concept. Quite simply, it
refers to the value of a company, that is, the market value of its outstanding shares. This
figure is found by taking the stock price and multiplying it by the total number of shares
outstanding. For example, if Cory's Tequila Corporation (CTC) was trading at $20 per share and
had 1 million shares outstanding, then the market capitalization would be $20 million ($20 x 1
million shares). It's that simple.

Why Is This Important?
A common misconception is that the higher the stock price, the larger the company. Stock price,
however, may misrepresent a company's actual worth. If we look at two fairly large companies,
IBM and Microsoft, we see that at the time of writing their stock prices are $29 and $22.75
respectively. Although IBM's stock price is higher, it has about 1.73 billion shares
outstanding, while MSFT has 10.68 billion. As a result of this difference, we can see that
MSFT's market cap of $242.97 billion is actually quite larger than IBM's $50.17 billion. If we
compared the two companies by solely looking at their stock prices, we would not be comparing
their true values, which are affected by the amount of their outstanding shares.

 

[Paul-B]

As soon as Vista is released to the public, the cracks will be out.

Already out and working.

 

[Robert Moir]

Actually I would think that the marketing department at MS would have
at least minor interest in the opinion of one of customers.

Someone who is pirating software isn't a customer are they? They're a thief.

My point is that the pricing of Vista encourages piracy.

Does the high price of a Ferrari encourage car crime? Or is it that some
people are criminal?

My
opinion was always that if MS would lower their prices, there would
be less piracy.

This is a flawed theory. Using your reasoning no one would steal penny candy
from the local corner shop (and dude, it does happen) and no one would
pirate budget-priced software (they most certainly do) and they wouldn't
even attempt to steal shareware software, which offers very good value for
money and is a good example of supporting grass roots software development
rather than "having to pay 'the man'" (sorry, looked like you lucked out
here too).

And they significantly increased the cost with very
little value added.

Here I agree with you. Vista is very poor value for money. I don't think
people should be in a rush to buy it at all. But that is no excuse for
people to 'steal' it.

Imagine Mom&Pop computer shops. It was already tilted incredibly in
the favor of the large OEMs in that the cost of a single license of
XP was so expensive. With Vista, appears that they are going to
increase that tilt.

Again, agree with you here. I wonder if this is intentional on the part of
Microsoft as "Mom & Pop" businesses are perceived to be more likely to be
'grey selling' OEM software, and of course are more difficult to take action
against than larger businesses because if they're threatened by action can
just go bankrupt.

Regards
Rob.

 

[Robert Moir]

its called "business", dumbass. and if you were a CEO you would
understnad. but youre obviously a jealous child

Well whatever faults Alias may or may not have, they at least appear to be
literate!

 

[Mr.Hacker]

Already out and working.

Yes indeed!
I've had Vista Home Premium with 30 days left to activation for the last 2 months.
Microsoft made a big mistake allowing installation without a product key.
Updates? Plenty of non-Microsoft sites supplying those.

 

[Alias]

I agree with some of what you say, however, you don't know much about
stock values. Apple's shares are more per share basically because they
have far
less issued. If you want to talk about overall market capitalization,
then Apple
isn't even close to Microsoft. It's not even close in profit.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/snapshots/879.html
Microsoft
Market Value= $284 billion
Revenue= $39.7 billion
Profit= $12.2 billion

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/snapshots/114.html
Apple
Market Value= $55 billion
Revenue= $13.9 billion
Profit= $1.3 billion

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/basics/03/031703.asp
Calculating Market Cap
Market capitalization is just a fancy name for a straightforward
concept. Quite simply, it refers to the value of a company, that is, the
market value of its outstanding shares. This figure is found by taking
the stock price and multiplying it by the total number of shares
outstanding. For example, if Cory's Tequila Corporation (CTC) was
trading at $20 per share and had 1 million shares outstanding, then the
market capitalization would be $20 million ($20 x 1 million shares).
It's that simple.

Why Is This Important?
A common misconception is that the higher the stock price, the larger
the company. Stock price, however, may misrepresent a company's actual
worth. If we look at two fairly large companies, IBM and Microsoft, we
see that at the time of writing their stock prices are $29 and $22.75
respectively. Although IBM's stock price is higher, it has about 1.73
billion shares outstanding, while MSFT has 10.68 billion. As a result of
this difference, we can see that MSFT's market cap of $242.97 billion is
actually quite larger than IBM's $50.17 billion. If we compared the two
companies by solely looking at their stock prices, we would not be
comparing their true values, which are affected by the amount of their
outstanding shares.

Thanks for the clarification.

Alias

 

[MICHAEL]

I agree with some of what you say, however, you don't know much about
stock values. Apple's shares are more per share basically because they have far
less issued. If you want to talk about overall market capitalization, then Apple
isn't even close to Microsoft. It's not even close in profit.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/snapshots/879.html
Microsoft
Market Value= $284 billion
Revenue= $39.7 billion
Profit= $12.2 billion

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/snapshots/114.html
Apple
Market Value= $55 billion
Revenue= $13.9 billion
Profit= $1.3 billion

Some extra random thoughts. Apple's profit as % of revenues is 9.6%.
That's respectable. Microsoft's profit as % of revenues is 31%.
That's incredible, one of the highest of any company in the world.
Basically what that means, Microsoft doesn't have much overhead-
they are a profit generating machine.

Take this a bit further. If you remove Microsoft's mega money loser
Entertainment division (XBOX mostly), then the OS division and Office
division are delivering 99% of Microsoft's profits, with margins close
to 80%. In other words, it is about as close as any company will ever
come to "pure profit".

The numbers I posted above are from 2005. Microsoft's released
numbers for 2006 are above those- record numbers. What's so
amazing about that? No major OS or Office releases in years.


-Michael

 

[MICHAEL]

Thanks for the clarification.

You're welcome. Look, I don't have a problem with you, I actually
agree with quite a few things you post. I believe we share many of
the same concerns. However, there are times when your attitude is
just extreme as the Microsoft lover boys.

Here's a few more bits to chew on. Microsoft's profit and value are larger
than Wal-Marts, Dell, IBM, and many other companies that have huge revenues.
I don't post this to brag about Microsoft, just to point out Microsoft has
not been hurting. At least the music industry can point to declining numbers
and say, "See, piracy is killing us". Although, the music industry has problems
much deeper than piracy.
Microsoft can't say the same. They set record after record after record
for profits generated.
They even have a profit margin 3x larger than the
behemoth Exxon.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/snapshots/1551.html
Wal-Mart
Market Value= $195 billion
Revenues= $316 billion
Profit= $11.2 billion
Profit as % of Revenues= 3.6%

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/snapshots/406.html
Dell
Market Value= $68 billion
Revenues= $56 billion
Profit= $3.5 billion
Profit as % of Revenues= 6.4%

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/snapshots/676.html
IBM
Market Value= $131 billion
Revenues= $91 billion
Profit= $8 billion
Profit as % of Revenues= 8.7%

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/snapshots/496.html
Exxon
Market Value= $373 billion
Revenues= $340 billion
Profit= $36 billion
Profit as % of Revenues= 10.6%

 

[Richard Urban]

A State Trooper with a speed gun assumes the same thing, that all people are
speeders until they pass through the beam successfully.

A security guard at Best Buy assumes the same thing, that you may be a thief
until you pass out of the store without the alarm going off.

A father of a 16 year old beauty assumes that her new boyfriend is a
thug/rascal/degenerate, until he is proven otherwise.

Need I go on. You have really got to get a grip. You are just pissed because
you can't steal the operating systems any longer.

It is people like you who caused this mess to be dropped on the heads of the
"innocent" users.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[caver1]

A State Trooper with a speed gun assumes the same thing, that all people
are speeders until they pass through the beam successfully.

Nobody gets stooped unless they are speeding.

A security guard at Best Buy assumes the same thing, that you may be a
thief until you pass out of the store without the alarm going off.

You don't have to prove that you aren't unless you are.

A father of a 16 year old beauty assumes that her new boyfriend is a
thug/rascal/degenerate, until he is proven otherwise.

He doesn't pull out his police record.

Need I go on. You have really got to get a grip. You are just pissed
because you can't steal the operating systems any longer.

It is people like you who caused this mess to be dropped on the heads of
the "innocent" users.

MS is only doing this to protect it's monopoly. If MS was trying to stop
piracy they would be making it impossible for the pirates to copy the
programs not for the end users to use it properly in their own homes.
The police know that someone is a thief but they can do nothing about
it, including going into their private areas, without proof and a court
order.