Microsoft has extended its anti-piracy olive branch to China, offering users of bootleg copies of Windows a 50 percent discount on a legitimate version if they come clean on how they got their pirated copy.
As part of a two-month promotion that started in February, the company is offering a Chinese version of Windows XP Home Edition and Professional Edition at 786 yuan (£50), and 1,270 yuan, respectively. The two products normally retail for about £150 and £200.
To qualify for this offer, users with unlicensed copies of Windows installed on their machines need to complete an online form in which they disclose how they obtained the bogus software.
For example, they will have to specify whether their existing Windows packages were installed by an independent reseller, bundled with their PCs at the point of sale or purchased from street peddlers. A discount voucher will then be emailed to these users following their submissions.
The promotion mirrors a similar effort introduced in the United Kingdom last November in which Microsoft offered to swap fake copies with genuine versions of Windows XP for free. However, the piracy rate in China is much higher than it is in the United Kingdom, which could significantly raise costs for the software giant if it were to go with a similar approach.
In a further attempt to stem piracy, Microsoft now requires businesses and consumers in China to verify that their copies of Windows are genuine before they're allowed to download security patches and other OS updates.
The mandatory validation measure, which was also implemented in Norway and the Czech Republic last month, will be expanded to all other countries by the middle of this year. This validation measure has caused controversy, with Microsoft admitting using it to block users of popular Windows emulation application Wine.
Talkback
Personally I suport software piracy, escpecially the piracy of what most people believe is over-priced monopolistic software like Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office.
The effect of such actions can only be to force the large multi-national companies to lower software prices. After all, if companies like Microsoft really wanted to get rid of piracy they would heed to the research which says the best way to combat piracy is to lower prices. However, they know that they can make more money putting up with a bit of piracy and charging the rest of us heaps than they would if they lowered the price for everyone.
The arguement that an absence of piracy would 'enable' companies like Microsoft to offer cheaper software is a complete falsehood. If that was true why does the price of Windows go up with every version despite Microsoft making billions more with every version?
Besides, to quote the simpsons, "all it costs them is just another ivory back-scratcher".
Better to mention that MOST people earn <3000 yuan per month even in big cities. That's mean to buy a win xp pro version, you'll spend a whole month's salary on it. That's the real reason people buy from street for 2 yuan per CD!
Only a response to First China Open-Source Software Week. Microsoft has good PR, but this XP amnesty is only to distract the press from the China Open-Source Software Week going on now:
http://linuxinsider.com/story/40978.html
See Xinhua for more.
Microsoft call these people criminals when they are the real criminals. First they force all the other Chinese (and other) Operating System producers out of business, then they force everyone to pay a months salary to purchase a copy.
I think people there (and here for that matter) should increase pirating of Microsoft products just to force Microsoft to offer decent prices.
Its easy to get Windows or Office from Bittorrent, Gnutella or Kazaa (although Kazaa includes evil spyware). Doing so will save yourself several hundred quid in the process and give you a full working copy which is just as good as the original!