Microsoft’s Longhorn Now Selling Illegally In Bkk

[george]

Microsoft’s Longhorn now selling illegally in Bangkok

BANGKOK: -- MICROSOFT Corp.’s next-generation operating system codenamed “Longhorn” is now being sold illegally for only 100 baht in one of Bangkok’s popular information technology shopping centers way ahead of the software’s public debut in 2005.

The neatly packaged “pirated” version of Longhorn is being sold with other operating systems and software at Panthip Plaza, located just across the Pratunam district, a haven for bargain shoppers.

Browsing through the collection of pirated software being sold at an average of 100 baht a piece, one could also find Microsoft’s Windows XP with SP2 package all in one CD. A Sun Microsystems Solaris 9.0 version was also available for the same price.

Software piracy thrives at Patnip Plaza, which ironically also sells legitimate software. One may even be surprised to see a store selling legitimate software beside another store hawking pirated software.

Software piracy cost the Asia Pacific region more than 7.5 billion US dollars in lost revenues in 2002, according to the Business Software Alliance (BSA). In 2003, Asia was found to have the second highest piracy rate in the world, next to Western Europe.

In BSA’s 2003 report, Asia placed fourth globally with 53 percent of the software installed in computers illegally acquired.

Vietnam and China were ranked as the biggest culprits worldwide, with piracy rates of 92 percent. Indonesia had the fourth highest piracy rate at 88 percent, while Ukraine had 91 percent. The global piracy rate in 2003 was at 36 percent, said the BSA.

The 2003 BSA study was expanded to include major software segments including operating systems, consumer software and local market software. In previous studies, only business software applications were included.

Globally, the total value of software installed was 80 billion dollars but only 51 billion dollars of that was legally purchased, resulting in a loss of 29 billion dollars, according to the BSA.

--Agencies 2004-08-26

[mouse]

Maybe we should ask our ourselves why piracy continues ........ Because it is encouraged by Microsoft!!!

Let me start of by saying that Windows XP SP2 update is the best thing to come out of Microsoft in a long time.

Microsoft Senior Vice President, Windows Client Group, Will Poole, who was in Bangkok to attend the ICT expo recently, an event that coincided with "the final stages of lift-off" for SP2 was interviewed at which time he stated that the SP2 would be available to all Windows users even those with pirated copies.

Now something seems to be wrong here. It dismays me that I legally purchased six full copies of Windows XP Professional recently, for an Internet Cafe that my wife opened a year ago and now the upgrade will be available for all users, whether or not they have purchased their software or pirated it.

Have I been struck by Robin Hood? In my case, I went so far as to remove all illegally installed software that was placed on the computers hard drive by the outlet where I purchased the units.

Now I truly believe that I and many others have been duped. I did the right thing and purchased six full legal copies of the Windows Operating software. You can hardly comprehend what trouble I went though to get the original software, due to me living in Asia, where it is actually difficult to find the original software for sale in the first place. And on top of that I now find myself to be an object of ridicule by the very pirates that everyone pretended to be battling.

I feel that people without proper software should have been blocked from the net totally until they can demonstrate that they do have a legal copy of an operating system on their computers. I understand about Microsoft's fear that they will embrace other operating systems, but, I would be more concerned about the people with money that have actually bought Microsoft's products in good faith an are now being told they are the fools. For if they migrate to other operating systems then Microsoft will be in financial trouble within a very short period of time

What are the implications of this action by Microsoft; If their update is as resilient as stated, then they should not be concerned as to who upgrades and who does not, for the users of the system i.e the paying customers will be secure. Those that choose another route will not be. But to tell me that my purchase was in vain is insult added to past injury of having to spend time and money in remaining updated.

Was this done in the name of security or due to greed? How I am to teach my children to be honest and not pirate software when Microsoft seems to now encourage such acts?

[kabal1234]

Given that Longhorn is in its pre-alpha stages, I say let them have it. This OS is going to be great when it comes out...especially WinFS.

[yeti]

MICROSOFT Corp.’s next-generation operating system codenamed “Longhorn” is now being sold illegally for only 100 baht in one of Bangkok’s popular information technology shopping centers way ahead of the software’s public debut in 2005.

I first saw CD of Longhorn more than one year ago.

That's fresh news !!!!

But everytime I go Panthip, they sell me a CD for 150 Baht.

Does journalist have a special price, or am I usually screwed up ?

[waldwolf]

...........But everytime I go Panthip, they sell me a CD for 150 Baht.

Does journalist have a special price, or am I usually screwed up ?

^^ Some call it getting scr*wed, others call it inflation.

As you stated, Longhorn (in various beta releases) has been available on many warez sites for over a year.

In the case of XP, Microsoft probably has a hidden ID in each beta version, that identifies the tester. In the XP case, a number of "leakers" were permanently dropped from the Microsoft approved beta tester list. (No more free software. )

[francois]

hi'

55555555

did you know that there are patches for any microsh$t progs or OS to make them

invisible to any registration ... especialy for windows update?

patch for office, win OS ... and some more like the version number in the down-right corner of your screen ...

one is the famous command line :

regsvr32.exe -u C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\regwizc.dll

it was working fine for win98 ...

did it work?

oh yeah

cheers

francois

[MadFrankie]

MICROSOFT Corp.’s next-generation operating system codenamed “Longhorn” is now being sold illegally for only 100 baht in one of Bangkok’s popular information technology shopping centers way ahead of the software’s public debut in 2005.

I first saw CD of Longhorn more than one year ago.

That's fresh news !!!!

But everytime I go Panthip, they sell me a CD for 150 Baht.

Does journalist have a special price, or am I usually screwed up ?

there taking the piss yeti, the windows CDs are <deleted> quality un-printed CD-Rs with a photocopy for a sleave, if any.

You can get any PS2 DVD game for 100 bat with a top quality printed disc and sleave