Microsoft executive: Pirating software? Choose Microsoft!

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Microsoft doesn't want you to pirate their software, but if you must choose between illegally installing Windows or a competitor's operating system, Microsoft would prefer that you choose them. While the company obviously won't endorse the illegal use of software, it does believe that piracy can result in profit.

At the Morgan Stanley Technology conference last week in San Francisco, Microsoft business group president Jeff Raikes commented on the benefits of software counterfeiting. "If they're going to pirate somebody, we want it to be us rather than somebody else," he said. "We understand that in the long run the fundamental asset is the installed base of people who are using our products. What you hope to do over time is convert them to licensing the software."

While Raikes' words do not appear to echo the sentiments of his company at first, what he said actually fits right into Microsoft's agenda. Over the last two years, the company has been heading a global effort to crack down on piracy, specifically the piracy of Microsoft products. In a memo on product activation, the company even states, "Software piracy is an enormous drain on the global economy, according to the 2000 BSA Software Piracy Report." Though many have argued that the BSA report was wildly inaccurate, Microsoft still uses whatever weapons it can find to convert pirates into customers. Just as the "Get the Facts" campaign is intended to sway users from Linux, Microsoft's antipiracy offensive aims to sway users away from Windows—counterfeit Windows that is.

According to Raikes' numbers, 20 to 25 percent of all software that is used in the United States is pirated. To Microsoft, those people are all potential customers, and in many ways the company's antipiracy campaign is equivalent to a large marketing push. The FUD, eye-catching images, and cheesy slogans (e.g. Get Genuine) all fit into the scheme. Once a person is converted into a user of Genuine Microsoft software, I highly doubt he will ever stray back to the dark side, but that's just a hunch.

:source: Source: http://arstechnica.com/journals/micr...oose-microsoft

Dont worry Microsoft, I got ya covered. LOL did i say that out loud. I can see their point. U would be making really crappy software if ppl didn't even want to get ur software for free. N a lil of that is true i rather use a sofware for free then later purchase it when i think it deserves the right of being purchased. Same goes with movies n music as well.

Hypocrisy at it's finest.

What he's talking about does make sense. Companies' (with MS very much at the forefront) OEM products are so cheap because they know that users would rather upgrade what they know than learn to use something else. Piracy isn't really too far removed from this; sure there are plenty of people that will warez the latest version of XYZ Office Suite but there are always those moving away from warez that maybe wouldn't have been customers had they not used an illegal copy.