Ballmer says: Lower Piracy, Lower Prices

Friday, Apr. 28 2006 | Author: Griffith

Microsoft’s CEO made a nice “campaign” comment on software piracy, perhaps to try and encourage people to legally purchase their software. Here is the comment itself:

“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,”

Is it just me, or can anyone else detect the faint smell of horse dung that emanates from that quote?

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.

Personally, I’ve found myself purchasing more software now than ever because some companies are smart enough to distribute it on the internet and charge a symbolic value for it. And even donating, to those which don’t charge anything at all. For me any price between 15$ and 25$ is affordable for software, considering I’m not getting a nice box or a printed CD with it. It saves the company time and money, and it saves the customer time and money.

Here’s a clue to Mr. Ballmer. Perhaps if an office application, which hasn’t received any notable updates for many years, cost less than their Operative System (which is, undoubtedly, much harder to develop), people would start listening seriously to your piracy-related comments.

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4 Responses for "Ballmer says: Lower Piracy, Lower Prices"

cliche

April 28th, 2006 at 09:20
1

I’m calling 911 to request an ambulance at Griffith’s house for chair related injuries.
Marco (Griffith) Jardim

April 28th, 2006 at 14:21
2

I took measures before writing this post and hid all my chairs somewhere safe. However, I hope he isn’t strong enough to pickup sofas.
Danny

April 28th, 2006 at 14:23
3

I generally agree with highly priced software.
Especially products from MS.

But I personally find 15-25$ to be too low.
(well it depends what kinda application..)

As for the nice package or box.
It costs software company almost nothing
to package their software compared to what
they have to spend to actually develope it.

Not creating package wouldn’t make huge
cost-saving for them.

Most software products take a company with
50-100 employees 1-3 years to come up with
new products. In that case 15-25 won’t cut
it.

I guess because software is not something
tangible so people often think paying
couple hundreds of dollors for it seems
harsh.

But it’s not.

As for the MS, they got complete-textbook
case of monopoly going on for them,
so, yes, their products are over priced.
Marco (Griffith) Jardim

April 28th, 2006 at 15:35
4

I’m afraid I have to disagree with you Danny. I recently bought a Microsoft Mouse from an online store from a “bulk” package. Or in other words, no fancy box, only the manual CD and the mouse itself.

The mouse cost me 23€, and recently I walked into a computer store and saw it for sale for 44€ with it’s fancy Microsoft box. So the box does make a big difference. At least for my mouse it did. And don’t forget shipment costs, those are also high.