Microsoft's anti-piracy attempts misguided

[KernelOverlord]

COLUMN- Microsoft's anti-piracy attempts misguided, ineffective

by Bo Coaten

DM Staff Reporter

October 28, 2004

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has stunned the public once again by making asinine comments about the corporation and the future of technology.

When asked about Microsoft’s main concern, Ballmer said piracy was a greater concern than Linux and, more importantly, security.

While this issue is understandable, though not comparatively, his comments continued.

“One way to stem piracy is to offer consumers in emerging countries...a $100 computer,” Ballmer said.

I’m not quite sure how Ballmer finds a correlation between PC hardware costs and software piracy, though I find it interesting that Microsoft could blame the rampant piracy of their software on anything other than their absurd prices.

After all, for nearly every software package that Microsoft makes, there’s a cheap or free alternative, which is generally just as good as Microsoft’s version.

For instance, the student version of Microsoft Office is $130, and the professional version is over $400.

Open Office is free and is sufficient for a large majority of people, especially those who primarily need a word processor.

A great alternative to Internet Explorer is Mozilla’s Firefox.

I just recently made Firefox my primary web browser for multiple reasons, including the numerous extensions and themes, tabbed browsing and pop-up blocker, which IE only recently adopted.

There is even a free alternative to Windows, with Linux.

Though Linux still lags behind Windows as far as ease of use and driver support, the Linux kernel is constantly being tweaked in order to minimize Window’s lead with these issues as well as maximize security and hardware compatibility.

This accelerated growth is a direct result of the open source community, as more programmers and corporations help seed innovation.

Bill Gates recently acknowledged the growing impact and threat of Linux in the market, which I found surprising.

Perhaps Microsoft should stop worrying about piracy and worry about Linux.

I decline to accept Microsoft’s theory of hardware costs causing an increase in software piracy.

While I understand the point that Ballmer was trying to make, though poorly made, it still lacks logic.

With his reasoning, the way to curb the widespread piracy of Xbox games is for Microsoft to practically give away the Xbox consoles, thereby giving more people the opportunity to pirate the games.

For some reason, and please excuse me if I’m alone here, this logic seems counter-intuitive.

To be fair to Microsoft, I guess we can’t expect a software company’s loss of profits from its software to be related to its own pricing.

I just wish Microsoft would stop seeking scapegoats and direct the blame to the rightful owner: themselves.

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