IP: Now it becomes clear --- Microsoft does it yet again

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

This note explains a lot. Several Ipers have said they did not run into 
registration actions . It seems MS is experimenting with the academic -- 
EDUCATIONAL world -- guess we are third world. This is at the same time 
that MS is trying to "give" software to Universities so that they will be 
used by students in class etc instead of that UNIX word. and thus get 
"addicted" MS products / Well they are adicting them to getting use to 
paying and paying for the software.

Hmm sounds like a DRUG PUSHER.

Annoyed and puzzeled

Dave


> Date: Thu, 04 Nov 1999 13:11:59 +1100
> From: Nathan Cochrane <ncochrane () theage fairfax com au>
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
>
>
> Hi Dave
>
> It seems like your correspondent has been bitten by the Office
> Registration Wizard (ORW), a poorly-considered and offensive bit of
> technology tattle-telling. It has only been deployed in third-world
> countries like parts of South America and Australia, and in the
> education packs sold in the US. MS Australia quietly admits this is a
> testbed before MS rolls out the system worldwide.
>
> In Queensland, Australia, the state school teachers are furious that the
> education ministry has signed a deal with MS that only allows them to
> lease the software -- they have to pay an annuity ad infinitum to MS in
> order to use the software.
>
> For those upset at the change -- effectively meaning you will never own
> your PCs software ever again, but will have to pay a tax/rent to
> software companies forever -- the choice is simple : use software that
> doesn't have these restrictions.
>
> Here is a yarn we ran in Melbourne's The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, and
> online at FairfaxIT (http://www.it.fairfax.com.au) earlier this year.
>
> cheers
>
>
>
> By NATHAN COCHRANE
> BILL GATES, the world's richest man, with more than $US100 billion
> didn't get that wealthy by giving away his software.
> But Microsoft's desire to minimise software piracy through its
> Office2000 Registration Wizard (ORW) angers some legitimate users of its
> latest productivity suite.
> Rod Ashcroft, founder of Australia's first Web portal and search site
> Webwombat.com.au, is furious that Microsoft forces him to register his
> software. He is further annoyed at the Melbourne retailer who sold him
> the software because no mention was made of the Wizard.
> Ashcroft and all Australian users of O2K are required by Microsoft to
> register -- either electronically or by post -- their applications
> within 50 startups or the program will lock them out until a
> registration key is entered.
> ``It's outrageous. There's no mention on the box of the requirement to
> register and I am forced to use Microsoft products because it is the
> industry standard and everyone uses them,'' Ashcroft said.
> ``I'm coming up on the fiftieth time I've uses the software and if I
> don't register it, it will lock me out of a program I have paid nearly
> $1000 for.''
> An early shrinkwrap version of Office Professional sent to FairfaxIT
> contains a notice in small print on the upper flap of the box that
> registration is required.
> Microsoft has deployed its controversial ORW for educational users in
> the US and commercial users only in Australia, New Zealand and parts of
> South America. Areas which, according to Australian Office product
> manager Ben Graetz, are not big piracy concerns by international
> standards.
> ``Piracy in Australia is actually lower than the worldwide average,''
> Graetz said. ``It's about 34 per cent I think from the latest Business
> Software Association of Australia figures, but that still means that one
> in three people are stealing the product.
> ``Clearly, that's not good; if you were running a restaurant and one in
> three people ate and left without paying you'd want to do something
> about it.
> ``We're taking a leadership position in helping to solve an important
> problem for the industry.''
> The most recent analysis of software copying conducted by
> PriceWaterhouseCoopers for the the Business Software Association of
> Australia (this country's equivalent of the SPA) estimates 32 per cent
> of software is copied illegally, a value of $250 million. The
> Association of which Microsoft is an anchor member along with Adobe,
> Autodesk, Symantec and Micrografix, uses an arbitrary formula for
> calculating unauthorised copying. It multiplies the number of PCs sold
> by the number of software it expects should be on each PC, it then
> compares this result with the actual sell-through sales figures. The
> difference is what is pirated.
> A BSAA spokesman did not return repeated calls.
> Autodesk's Australasian managing director, Andre Pravaz, said his
> company used similar registration techniques, restricting buyers of its
> high-end products to 30 days use before registration.
> ``We think a 50 times startup is not a bad thing,'' Pravaz said.
> ``We have quite a heavy reliance on registration codes. It's an area
> we're reviewing ... but pirates get around a lot of that stuff.''
> Microsoft's Graetz said buyers are not required to give personal
> details, but if they do they get other benefits. He did not say if it
> would be deployed commercially in the US in future.
> ``I have sat in and listened to a lot of the calls coming through (to
> the registration helpdesk),'' Graetz said.
> ``The overwhelming majority of people have no problems with registering
> and are quite happy to do so. So we're happy that we've introduced a new
> technology to help combat piracy.''
> Editor of the Australian Consumer Association's Computer Choice
> magazine, Rosanne Bersten, says Microsoft is ``overstepping the
> bounds''.
> ``Whether it's legal or not is irrelevant,'' Bersten said. ``We don't
> think Australian consumers should be a test group for Microsoft when it
> knows it wouldn't get away with it on its home turf in the US.''
> She said consumers were not forced to use Microsoft products, and should
> consider alternatives such as those from Corel or Applix. Increasingly,
> Linux-based productivity suites, including StarOffice, provide a viable
> alternative.
> ``If you choose the competition, you send a message to any company that
> thinks it doesn't have to pay attention to the
> consumer.''
> ENDS
>
>
> Dave Farber wrote:
> > I have Office 2000 and had installed it on a laptop. I have just
> > decommissioned the laptop and re-installed it on a new one. It, Office 2000
> > insists on me registering it and warns me that unless I do it will stop
> > working but when I try to register it, it says it is registered to another
> > machine and refuses to re-register it.
> >
> > While I would never accuse MS of such greed and evil -- I must be just
> > misunderstanding what is going on, I am left with , again I assume a
> > mistaken impression, that Ms insists that not only do you have to buy
> > windows each time but office etc.
> >
> > I must be wrong -- right??
> >
> > Dave
> >
> > _____________________________________________________________________
> > David Farber
> > The Alfred Fitler Moore Professor of Telecommunication Systems
> > University of Pennsylvania
> > Home Page: http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~farber
> > Email: farber () cis upenn edu
> >
> > Home: +1 610 274 8292; Cell and Office: +1 215 327 8756; Fax:  +1 408 
> 490 2720
>
> --
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Nathan Cochrane (ncochrane () theage fairfax com au, nathan () slashdot org)
>          Technology Journalist - The Age newspaper IT section
>  tel:+61-39600-4211, fax:+61-39601-2960, http://www.it.fairfax.com.au

_____________________________________________________________________
David Farber
The Alfred Fitler Moore Professor of Telecommunication Systems
University of Pennsylvania
Home Page: http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~farber
Email: farber () cis upenn edu

Home: +1 610 274 8292; Cell and Office: +1 215 327 8756; Fax:  +1 408 490 2720