smackfoo.com | I find your lack of faith disturbing.

.. and misses the point entirely.

It never ceases to amaze me how piracy is the universal “reason for everything”, as though it’s some magical and mystical evil that swallows all before it and none shall prevail.. the sky is falling!

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer repeatedly suggested that piracy is the reason why Vista is coming up short in sales. As a result, Ballmer feels that Microsoft must step up its antipiracy efforts to protect Vista sales worldwide. The move to stave off increases in pirate activity will no doubt affect the everyday users of Microsoft’s operating systems.

“We [will] really ferret through how far we can dial it up, and what that means for customer experience and customer satisfaction,” said Ballmer. #

It wouldn’t be because Vista is one of the single most expensive consumer operating systems ever released, would it Steve? Oh hell no!

Let’s punish our victims loyal subjects by having an increasingly steep cost base, for varying levels of usefulness, screw over genuine users who then have to fight DRM and intrinsically horrible and endless validation checks.. and then have the gall to suggest the reason we don’t lap up this shit, like some kind of bastardised narcotic.. is that we’re all lying, evil, nasty little thieves.

.. and it appears his comments are not in sync with Gates, who seems quite happy with the results thus far. So which is it? Either it’s rockin’ along, or Balmer’s getting greedy and expects valid users tot take the hit in the process .. my money *cough* is on the later - Balmer’s got a potential cash cow and isn’t afraid to milk it for all it’s worth.

With upgrade prices starting around AUS $179 (US $140) for Vista Home Basic¹ right through to Vista Ultimate² that has a street price of ~ AUS $450 (US $350 on a good day) it’s not exactly a cheap upgrade path.

And Cthulu help you if you’re buying it outright - Vista Ultimate Full³ weighs in at a staggering AUS $680 (that’s US $535 for the exact same thing as the upgrade version).

Got a 64bit processor? Then at present you must procure Ultimate to gain the 64 bit version. That’s ‘tight’ init?

I’m sorry - but who, in their right mind, wants to spend in excess of US $500 on an operating system that punishes you with DRM, unstable code and a distinct lack of hardware vendor support. Of course, that’s crazy talk.. we are supposed to bow at the feet of the Empire - we must obey Steve Ballmer our master.

AUS $680+ to drink the cool-aid with all the hip cats at Microsoft? I don’t think so. Double that and I can by a Mac, with the Operating System. And another thing.. Apple also sells OS X, just the two versions, single install and family pack⁴, for AUS $199 and AUS $299, respectively.

Microsoft has priced itself clear out of the market, with enthusiasts⁵ who want all the bells, whistles and shiny toys having to fork out hundreds and hundreds of dollars for an OS that has very little to actually offer, once you get past all the hype.

Windows Vista isn’t selling because, fundamentally, Microsoft have failed to understand the current market (who are undoubtedly asking why the cost is so high) failed to build an Operating System that can actually perform and failed to deliver on the promised features - it’s not how you reward the consumer base for it’s loyalty -”Thanks for all the cash, here’s yet another half-finished operating system that took twice as long to build as we said it would and oh by the way, won’t be at all good until at least Service Pack 2″.

Calling your consumer base scoundrels and pirates for not wanting to instantly spend hundreds of dollars on an OS that just plain fails to deliver on pretty much every level is.. just. plain. stupid.

1. .. which has less features than XP Home and few people want to replace XP with something far less useful, lets be honest fer chrissake! (↩)
2. .. the version that actually offers enough features to warrant an upgrade (↩)
3. .. that’s the “I didn’t buy your last excuse for an OS, so you need to punish me for being one of those evil open source people” option (↩)
4. .. good for up to 5 simultaneous installs - are you listening Mr Balmer? (↩)
5. .. early adopters are a big, juicy market - just ask Cell phone zand PDA vendors (↩)