Piracy Helps Windows?

[Warrior]

"Microsoft Corp. estimates it lost about $14 billion last year to software piracy — and those may prove to be the most lucrative sales never made.

Although the world's largest software maker spends millions of dollars annually to combat illegal copying and distribution of its products, critics allege — and Microsoft acknowledges — that piracy sometimes helps the company establish itself in emerging markets and fend off threats from free open-source programs."

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-micropiracy9apr09,0,414067.story

This further helps the point I made before regarding Microsoft locking pirates out of Aero.

[Sidoh]

Simply magnitude, sure.  But how much money did they actually make?

[Warrior]

I don't think it says but I think if you take the rise in piracy and the amount they gained you should have some sort of figure.

[Sidoh]

I don't think it says but I think if you take the rise in piracy and the amount they gained you should have some sort of figure.

Economics 101.  A figure representing the amount of money you spend or lose (in this case, anti-piracy) should also include a magnitude of how much revenue you've earned.  Sure, McDonalds probably doesn't lose much money to bums stealing hamburgers, but they probably make less money than Microsoft as well.

[Warrior]

True, still an interesting article. Sort of ironic

[RoMi]

Simply magnitude, sure.  But how much money did they actually make?

From the annual report.

[Sidoh]

~ 35% of their income.  That's huge. O_O

[iago]

That's true, we spent a significant amount of time discussing the MS Piracy thing in Ethics class.  They don't care if students, for instance, pirate their software.  Because when they get older, odds are they'll be so entrenched in Microsoft's products that they won't know how to use anything else and will end up sticking with it and likely buying it. 

[Sidoh]

That's true, we spent a significant amount of time discussing the MS Piracy thing in Ethics class.  They don't care if students, for instance, pirate their software.  Because when they get older, odds are they'll be so entrenched in Microsoft's products that they won't know how to use anything else and will end up sticking with it and likely buying it. 

That's a very good point.