Ballmer’s Piracy Quote
Now I’m all for anything to eliminate and reduce piracy. I just love getting in discussions with people when they think taking something of ANY value, actual or implied, isn’t theft.
Forever Geek is miffed at the following quote from Steve Ballmer recently:
“With less piracy, with more proper use, it certainly creates an opportunity for us and for other software companies to take a look at also reducing the cost, not just improving the benefits and the value of the software,”
And I’m miffed at the following implication from Forever Geek…
Even if there was less piracy, prices wouldn’t be lower, the prices would continue to be whatever people find affordable. If people find 800$ affordable for Windows Vista, that is what they will pay for it.
And there’s another thing that’s not being said. If software was more affordable to begin with there would already be less piracy.
BINGO! You got it. The market will support whatever the mass population is willing to pay for something. If people don’t like paying for Microsoft products, then STOP BUYING THEM! Think oil companies are charging too much? Go start your own or just stop driving your gas sucking SUV. And just because something is “affordable” doesn’t mean there will be any less theft. I think $.99 for a song on iTunes is pretty affordable, yet people continue to burn and distribute copies of their CD’s from and for their friends.
Tags: Ballmer, geek, piracy, theft, Windows VistaRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Corporate News, Security, Windows OS's
3 opinions for Ballmer’s Piracy Quote
Robert Aitchison
Apr 28, 2006 at 2:55 pm
Agreed on most parts though I’d like to point out that your iTunes analogy isn’t an apples to apples comparison. While the music you get from iTunes is arguably a fair price, it’s restricted by DRM on what you can do with it. These restrictions definitely decrease the value of the download (how much depends on what you want to do with it that you can’t and how important that is to you).
IMO if the music were offered at the same prices with no restrictions there would be more adoption and less piracy.
Still your point is valid, even if the music you could buy onlike were 100% DRM free (i.e. MP3, OGG or FLAC format) and were priced at $0.01 each there would still be piracy.
Jason
Apr 28, 2006 at 4:20 pm
Thanks Robert for your comment, and thank you for clarifying one of the challenges of iTunes. I forget about that restriction frequently. Buying a song on iTunes IS NOT the equivalent of buying an old 45rpm single of your favorite song.
Mac Beach
Apr 28, 2006 at 11:31 pm
I think the reaction to statements by Ballmer have gotten more intense over the years because he has a track record of only looking at things from the company’s point of view. Just off the top of my head (with public reaction in parens):
He’s brainwashed his kids to not use iPods. (Is this really the way you want to prioritize your work and private life?)
He thinks the world needs a $200 PC. (Why, so we can spend more money on operating systems?)
Developers, developers, developers… (Pushers, pushers, pushers?)
And now this, probably off-the-cuff statement on piracy, and a totally false linkage with web-enabled applications.
Microsoft is web-enabling applications because the competition is forcing it to. Period. They (Microsoft) don’t know how to monetize it yet, but no doubt they will start by mimicking what Google and Yahoo do and hope to add some sort of subscription service for Windows and/or Office.
Would prices for Office and Windows drop if piracy could be stopped dead tomorrow? Pure speculation says yes, but there are good historical reasons to doubt it. When I was sent off to BSA (Business Software Alliance) classes to learn all about piracy, the number one item on their agenda was the fact that Microsoft was not a member and would not aid them in their investigations or litigation. Why? Because Microsoft selectively encouraged piracy, or at least looked the other way when it was convenient to do so. They wanted Windows and Office to spread, and if it spread by illegal copying, that was OK, (for then) because they knew they could make up for it after Wordperfect and Lotus were out of the way. Lo and behold after MS products gained dominance they joined to BSA and suddenly were very concerned about this illegal activity.
Now the pattern repeats in countries such as Brazil and China, where millions of bootleg copies of MS products are in circulation. In both countries Linux use is fairly strong, so while MS talks tough about international piracy, they offer the products at below cost (isn’t it something like $10 a copy?) FOR NOW, until those alternatives are marginalized.
The “bad boy” attitudes of Ballmer and Gates before him were jokingly tolerated back in the Windows 95 days and before when the company was seen by more people than it is today as actually advancing computer technology. The joking aspect remains, but the toleration isn’t so high. The company is too old to still be going through puberty, but it still has the personality of a pimply faced kid. What they need is a makeover, not zit cream, which is what most of these new initiatives look like by comparison to what the rest of the world is up to.
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