Piracy has been a really hot topic lately on the internet. People are starting to get sued because they supposedly exchange copyrighted content via P2P. The RIAA is trying to scare the hell out of its potential consumers because they don't know how to use the Internet properly to promote their product and take advantage of this new medium. Cable companies and ISPs are now starting to throttle bandwidth because they don't want us to exchange TV shows over the Internet since it would render other service they provide useless. Cable TV, HD TV, Phone over IP could all be transmitted over the Internet if only we had the bandwidth for it. And last but not least, Microsoft has for the first time released an OS that seems to have a pretty good protection against piracy.
In all those years, I always thought that Mr. Gates and Mr. Ballmer knew that it was because of piracy that Windows was so much widespread and so successful. They proved me wrong by releasing this thing they call Windows Vista. Not only have they demonstrated that they didn't even understand their own business model, but they destroyed it entirely when they launched Vista. The model is really simple; get kids, students and home users familiar with Windows so that when they start working, companies will have no choice but to choose Microsoft products if they want their workers to be happy and productive. A lot of those persons using Windows at home will often recommend Microsoft product at work because they're comfortable or already have some experience with them. For a lot of software companies, it can be a sustainable strategy to target a young audience with free for non-commercial use products in order to create a strong user base for the future.
Curiously enough, Mr. Ballmer seems to understand at least part of this strategy since Microsoft is now trying to preinstall Windows XP on the XO laptop so that children in third world countries get familiar with their products instead of the Open Source ones.
On the opposite side, instead of encouraging this type of practice in the US, Microsoft is now requiring all its users to get legitimate copy of Vista. Not only that, but those user who never bought a copy of Microsoft OSes before are now confronted with the hassles of activation, along with the potential problems that some of them are doomed to face one day or another. I have seen user's stories all over the Internet about people getting locked out of their computer and having to phone Microsoft to be able to use their computer again. It's not the plug and play experience we were used to with the other versions of Windows. I would certainly not appreciate to get kicked out of my computer when I paid for every bit of software installed on it, would you?
It's not by mistake that a lot of users are turning over to alternatives right now. I can't rule out that Vista sucks really bad when it comes to the technological side of it, but pirates also have to deal with a new problem: a really strong protection. I'm not saying that it's not possible to work around those protections, but since Microsoft seems to be determined to go after each and every pirated copy of Windows, they will patch each and every hole that is used to defeat their protection. This is this last thing that will cause Microsoft to fail with Windows Vista and any other OS that has strong piracy protection. A lot of users that may have bought Windows in the first place will simply try something else because they can't get around the idea of being thrown out of their own computer when they did nothing wrong in the first place. It's a lot better to let some people get your software for free, than treat your customers like they were thieves.
Finally, I think that it's a privilege for Microsoft if even pirates choose to run Windows over any other OS since they will at least have created a more important user base. For any company, choosing to give a product for free for non-commercial use is a long term investment, and they must learn how to develop it, but it has worked in the past for Microsoft through the mean of piracy, and it will continue to work in the future for those who dare to try it.
