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Software intended for students ends up in the hands of consumers; Microsoft takes action

Proud of its latest big bust, Microsoft today sent out a press release announcing efforts to shut down alleged international software smuggling operations. As part of that effort, Microsoft has filed nine lawsuits and issued more than 50 cease and desist letters. The lawsuits were filed in federal courts in California, New York, New Jersey, Florida, Nevada and Montana.

According to allegations in the lawsuit complaints, companies in Jordan and elsewhere posing as academic resellers obtained hundreds of thousands of copies of discounted Microsoft Windows and Office system software intended for students in the region. These companies reaped “millions of dollars in illegal profits” by allegedly selling the software to Internet retailers in the United States rather than supplying it to the students. Many of the Internet retailers, in turn, allegedly made hefty profits by selling the software at retail prices to unsuspecting American consumers who were deceived into buying software that was not licensed for their use.

“To those who say software piracy is a victimless crime, I would say this case tells a different story,” said Bonnie MacNaughton, senior attorney at Microsoft. “The defendants in these lawsuits and others are charged with profiting from selling clearly marked educational software to unsuspecting retail customers who were not licensed to use it — and potentially depriving students and schools of the opportunity to benefit from the latest technologies.”

EDirectSoftware.com, one of the largest offenders, has already agreed to settle Microsoft’s lawsuit out of court for more than $1 million in cash and property. Microsoft did not reveal how many complaints are still outstanding, but the company did offer that some merchants have agreed to voluntarily stop selling the illegal software.

Microsoft has been actively stomping out piracy. Last July, Microsoft filed 26 lawsuits against resellers supposedly vending pirated software. Then in September, Microsoft sued 20 US-based companies for illegal hard disk loading. Most recently, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer repeatedly suggested that piracy is the reason why Vista is coming up short in sales.

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Mmmhmmm sure it is Steve...
By kamel5547 on 4/3/2007 4:42:10 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
Most recently, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer repeatedly suggested that piracy is the reason why Vista is coming up short in sales


Yep... thats what it is. It has *nothing* to do with the fact buiness is not upgrading, and that there is no reason to upgrade. In fact if you don't have a very recent recent machine there are tons of reasons not to upgrade.

Piracy is the reason Office doesn't sell... Vista is overpriced (and short on features).




RE: Mmmhmmm sure it is Steve...
By BladeVenom on 4/3/2007 4:45:47 PM , Rating: 2
Didn't their propaganda department just say last week that Vista was selling great, at twice the rate of XP?


RE: Mmmhmmm sure it is Steve...
By GaryJohnson on 4/3/2007 5:06:57 PM , Rating: 6
The answer to that question depends on what planet your from: Planet Earth or Planet Ballmer.


RE: Mmmhmmm sure it is Steve...
By Scorpion on 4/4/2007 12:09:33 PM , Rating: 3
This deserves a 6! :)


RE: Mmmhmmm sure it is Steve...
By tdawg on 4/3/07, Rating: -1
RE: Mmmhmmm sure it is Steve...
By mindless1 on 4/5/2007 11:26:13 AM , Rating: 2
For the purposes of our discussion, no, they aren't sales "nonetheless". Adoption rate is a matter of choice. Bundled OS with a system is not in most cases.


RE: Mmmhmmm sure it is Steve...
By Belard on 4/4/2007 2:49:14 AM , Rating: 1
Only because the OEMs.

I have played with a NEW Vista PC. Had to help a friend whose Dell died. Anyways I was shocked to find that it seemed to run pretty good with 512mb (Vista Basic) unlike what some reviewers said.

Anyways - *I HATE VISTA* The UCA-whatever popped up about 10 times, most for M$ installed software... basic things like SYSTEM tools. In the end, I still found that vista (especially basic) offered nothing over XP or XP-MCE. Things required more clicks, things are missing... Its still nothing much more than a bloated version of XP with sub-standard programming. It took me 15min to locate and install Vista-like functionality and look to XP, without the bloat.

Anyways - Talked to a Frys Sales manager. He himself admits that people should stick with XP, if possible - and that every PC he had on the shelves were of course, vista. What a position to be in.

So guess what? If some manufactures offered XP versions of their systems still - we'd find them out-selling vista most likely. Dell's business line still sells XP. hmmm

Anyways: Friend got a great deal on a new PC with Vista... which lived for an hour before I reformatted the partition and stuck on a newl purchased copy of XP-MCE... ah much nicer.

The ONLY big-deal I see about vista is DX10 in future games... and how many companies want to be jerks like M$ and sell Vista-ONLY working games.


RE: Mmmhmmm sure it is Steve...
By TomZ on 4/4/2007 12:24:34 PM , Rating: 3
Wow, such FUD! What is missing from Vista that XP has?

UCA bothering you? Simply turn it off! It is there for your benefit. Your car reminds you to put on your seat belt each time you get in. Does that annoy you too?

If you base your technical decision on advice from a Frys sales manager, then I could understand how you could reach such misguided conclusions...


RE: Mmmhmmm sure it is Steve...
By crimson117 on 4/4/2007 12:41:35 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
Wow, such FUD! What is missing from Vista that XP has?

Well where to start...

- Application compatibility
- Years of security research and patches (2 service packs)
- Gaming performance
- General performance on older hardware

There you go!


RE: Mmmhmmm sure it is Steve...
By TomZ on 4/4/2007 1:01:26 PM , Rating: 3
1. App compatibility problems are largely with older and ill-behaved applications. Vista also can run apps in XP-compatibility mode and/or administrator mode to solve most of these problems. I've got at least 50 XP-compatible apps running here on my Vista machine.

2. Security - that's funny and ironic. XP's approach to security is "security through zillions of patches." Vista is completely re-architected for improved security.

3. With the exception of OpenGL games (due to crappy video drivers), all of the Vista gaming performance reviews I've seen show Vista performance on par with XP.

4. Older hardware performance is an issue on machines with a small amount of RAM. Besides that, performance is really no different than XP.


RE: Mmmhmmm sure it is Steve...
By mindless1 on 4/5/2007 11:30:29 AM , Rating: 2
I can see you don't understand. Whether anything is missing is not the only measure.


RE: Mmmhmmm sure it is Steve...
By thebrown13 on 4/3/07, Rating: 0
RE: Mmmhmmm sure it is Steve...
By Alexstarfire on 4/3/07, Rating: -1
RE: Mmmhmmm sure it is Steve...
By deeznuts on 4/3/2007 6:27:57 PM , Rating: 2
Read the article, they're not complaining about the consumers who bought the academic version, but the company who pretended to be academic and bought a crapload, and the second company who would resell to unsuspecting customers.


RE: Mmmhmmm sure it is Steve...
By Zoomer on 4/3/2007 7:36:17 PM , Rating: 2
You forgot secure audio path, user mode drivers, etc.


RE: Mmmhmmm sure it is Steve...
By TomZ on 4/3/2007 11:44:41 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Yep... thats what it is. It has *nothing* to do with the fact buiness is not upgrading

Most businesses stay with the previous version. Businesses are not upgrading only because it is new, not because of any lack of features, quality, or whatever you mean to imply.


RE: Mmmhmmm sure it is Steve...
By Scorpion on 4/4/2007 12:40:55 PM , Rating: 2
I know several companies who have just recently moved old 2000Pro desktops to XP. Obviously they aren't going to turn right around and move everyone to Vista in a short time. And as you said, there really isn't a reason to. For productivity sake, Vista does not offer tremendous improvements over XP, in fact I would argue that it would hinder it, at least in the short term. One of the major reasons why business don't just jump onto the newest OS and move everyone over is the learning curve and productivity hit. Most people in the work place still aren't that well versed in computers especially the complex workings of the OS. Help Desks really don't want the headache of having to deal with people whining about how they can't do anything anymore because everything has changed. This is one thing Microsoft is constantly being lambasted for, the fact that with every Windows iteration they continue to move things around so much and lose cohesion with the way things were done before. Obviously that's not necessarily a bad thing for power users, because we are the ones often complaining about the way things have been done, but to the average person it has a greater impact.

Most people in the workplace are older and don't adapt to these changes as quickly as we do. They learn at a very slow pace, and most of their knowledge is through rote memorization, not a fundamental understanding of the underlying structure and inter workings.

My mother just recently upgraded her 6 year old 2000 Pro computer to Vista and Office 2007. In the same week her corporate desktop was upgraded to XP and Office 2003. She was one of the last to get the upgrade, probably because of the reasons I described before. So in one week she has had to simultaneously learn 2 new OSes and Office packages. That's quite a lot for her to take in at once. Trust me I know because it took me forever to teach her not to punch the "Esc" and "Delete" keys whenever something strange occurred.

I had to put together and clean up her new computer for her, and even I had issues with familiarizing myself with Vista. In fact, I gained a great appreciation for the Apple commercial that pokes fun at Vista. Anyone who spends 5 minutes on a new Vista install will gain the same appreciation. I find myself laughing hysterically every time that commercial comes on, and I generally find their other commercials to be pretty exaggerated.

So is there really any reason to upgrade in the work place? I think certainly not. It will hinder productivity and provide basically no benefit to what I would consider the "average" corporate user. I personally think Windows 2000 was the last OS that had what I would consider a beneficial gain to corporate users. If it weren't so shunned from improvements and development it would still be a very viable environment for the "average" user. It just doesn't "look" pretty.

Microsoft pulls a huge portion of their OS income by selling these OS licenses to companies. So it's no wonder they are screaming when business don't feel too inclined to upgrade, and I think the businesses are wisely hesitating. The only way they are going to push this OS onto people is by forcing it on new machines. I'd venture to say that most companies would simply revert back to an XP desktop anyhow. And given a choice to buy a computer without an OS, I'm sure most would end up with a volume licensed XP install. The costs of upgrading to Vista at this time are simply not justified.

Sorry for making this so long winded.


RE: Mmmhmmm sure it is Steve...
By dtm4trix on 4/4/2007 7:34:52 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Yep... thats what it is. It has *nothing* to do with the fact buiness is not upgrading, and that there is no reason to upgrade. In fact if you don't have a very recent recent machine there are tons of reasons not to upgrade.


Word! I mean come on Steve. Piracy is hardly the reason Vista is not selling. For one reason, Vista is a serious resource hog. For it to run smoothly you need 2Gb of ram. Second, companies are not willing to fork over that kind of dough to upgrade memory right now for what..? a nicer GUI? Not to mention that alot of companies run proprietary software that is not compatible with Vista at the moment. There are a half dozen other reasons why as well.


unbelievable
By cubby1223 on 4/3/2007 11:37:21 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
and potentially depriving students and schools of the opportunity to benefit from the latest technologies.”

Spin at it's worst. "Piracy" does not deprive students and schools. See, digital products are unique in that they have a near infinite supply, more copies can always be made at almost no cost. "Pirates" in no way cut off supply to legitimate purchasers.




RE: unbelievable
By TomZ on 4/3/07, Rating: 0
RE: unbelievable
By jajig on 4/4/2007 12:20:24 AM , Rating: 3
quote:
Your spin is worse than the original spin. Having a "near infinite supply" doesn't justify piracy/theft.


He never said it justified piracy.


RE: unbelievable
By jcolonial7 on 4/4/2007 1:11:09 AM , Rating: 4
I think the relevant point here is the original post seems to equate supply with benefit. Thus, if piracy doesn't hinder supply then it doesn't affect schools and students.

However, as Tomz rightly noted, this is spin because Microsoft's reduced pricing is contingent upon it being a limited release to only the academic community. If regular consumers are ripping off Microsoft through this offer, then it becomes much more likely that the academic pricing incentive will disappear... thus effectively depriving them not of the supply of software but of access to reduced-price tools. Therefore, the original poster's notion that piracy doesn't affect academic users is just plain wrong and only serves to further the myth that piracy is a victimless crime.


RE: unbelievable
By aos007 on 4/4/2007 11:46:11 AM , Rating: 2
Tomz said nothing of the sort, he just executed a personal attack. The POINT is that Microsoft is using ludicrous statements to justify what they're doing, when they don't really have to (piracy is illegal, period. What else do you need to say?) Saying unnecessary and illogical things hurts their credibility and makes people wonder what their motive really is. You are on the other hand reading way too much into Microsoft comment if you are finding there a veiled threat that Microsoft would remove academic program because of this. That's just conjecture. You guys seem to be on the "either you're with us or against us" bandwagon and anyone who points out illogical things is suddenly an enemy.


RE: unbelievable
By TomZ on 4/4/2007 12:21:15 PM , Rating: 1
Not really a personal attack. I was just pointing out that the OP doesn't seem to understand the basic difference between right and wrong, if he/she believes that piracy is okay because of "infinite supply" and that it doesn't deprive others of the product. These are B.S. arguments.


RE: unbelievable
By TomZ on 4/4/2007 12:17:22 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
He never said it justified piracy.


The OP said: "...digital products are unique in that they have a near infinite supply, more copies can always be made at almost no cost. "Pirates" in no way cut off supply to legitimate purchasers."

This is clearly justification for piracy. How much more clear can it be?


Short memories
By INeedCache on 4/4/2007 12:25:30 AM , Rating: 2
Not to carry the Microsoft flag, but this stuff about "even the businesses aren't upgrading to Vista" is really lame. The same thing happened when XP was released, and when ME was released, and when 98 was released, etc. Businesses do not usually jump on things like this unless there is an immediate compelling $$$$ reason, and with OSs, there usually isn't. And, businesses usually wait for support and familiarity to catch up before taking the leap. We didn't do a lot of XP upgrades in the first year, but years 2 and 3 were big. Not saying Vista will duplicate that, but at least some time needs to be given before announcing it a "failure".




RE: Short memories
By Wonga on 4/4/2007 6:57:21 AM , Rating: 2
Exactly right - any company which jumps straight on board a new operating system really needs to look at getting a new IT guy. Any professional establishment would test every program they had on a set of machines before they did anything, then maybe wait another 12 months for good measure (and to gain experience).


RE: Short memories
By crimson117 on 4/4/2007 12:47:20 PM , Rating: 2
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

That's why most companies are still on Windows 2000 Pro, and/or transitioning to Windows XP.

And also why most companies still run old mainframes rather than convert their core business processing to newer systems. Even if there are long term cost savings in migrating to newer back-end systems, there is just too much risk for most companies to stomach.


RE: Short memories
By Spivonious on 4/4/2007 2:44:55 PM , Rating: 2
You're right. Right now my company has a mix of Windows 95, NT4, 2000, and XP machines running a mix of Office 97 and Office 2003. There are zero reasons to upgrade every generation.


RE: Short memories
By darkpaw on 4/5/2007 1:59:22 PM , Rating: 2
There may be zero reason to upgrade every generation, but every single 95/NT (and likely all of the 2000 machines) on that network are easy targets for attackers.

As a security auditor, I love seeing any MS OS older then XP SP2, as its basically an open invitation for me. Thankfully most businesses have gotten rid of everything older then XP or only have a few straglers left with 2000. Anyone still using anyhting older then 2000 is just asking for it.


I bought both
By Wonga on 4/3/2007 6:13:33 PM , Rating: 2
I personally like Vista and Office 2007 and bought both of them. Vista is nice on the eyes (I know, a very "wishy-washy" reason to upgrade) and does seem to run smoother than XP (probably due to the cached recently used programs). Office has some new features which makes work a bit faster and easier.

I am a student though, which made the decision to get Vista a little bit easier (with £50 knocked off). I think if I paid the full price (which is ridiculous in the UK), I would have thought twice.




RE: I bought both
By Omega215D on 4/3/2007 7:31:07 PM , Rating: 2
When I wanted to buy the Student & Teacher Edition of Office I had to show student ID which was weird since I didn't have to for the 2000 version.

*Vista may look nice but it's not the only thing you'll be getting despite what others say.


RE: I bought both
By Wonga on 4/3/2007 7:56:01 PM , Rating: 2
If you get Office 2007 then you'll never get asked for ID - the basic package is now "Home and Student Edition", not just student and teacher, so everyone is welcome. One of the main selling points for me was the licence for three installs with this edition - I'm not sure if Office 2003 offered that or not.

Yeah, I do agree with you that Vista offers several improvements (some people may call it bloat, but I like much of the included software - unfortunate for 3rd party companies out there). I never had Media Center Edition before, so the ability to control TV viewing in such a polished program is a nice bonus.

Anyway, each to their own. If others don't like Vista, so be it, nothing wrong with that.


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