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[IP] more on Microsoft Plans For Automatic Hobbling of "Pirated" Vista Systems





Begin forwarded message:

From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed@xxxxxxxx>
Date: October 4, 2006 12:34:10 PM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Cc: ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [IP] Microsoft Plans For Automatic Hobbling of "Pirated" Vista Systems

I don't always agree with Lauren, but on this one, I do.

There must be a few people in the Microsoft leadership (Ballmer, perhaps?) who have come to view their customers as enemies or at least peons who must bow down to the power of Microsoft in all things.

Microsoft sees pirates - and it blames its customers.

Microsoft sees pirates, and it lays a minefield in the path of all its customers, to blow up anyone unsuspecting enough to walk into that minefield.

Microsoft behaves, in other words, like any power-mad dictator who feels the need to punish the many for the problems it suffers from the few.

Is this the only approach that might make sense? I guess it is when your management adopts a paranoid mindset.

I'd suggest an alternative: think creatively about how to encourage customers to see the value you deliver. Stop building your success on "controlling the market" and "lockin" that delivers not new value, but instead late, buggy crap with a few features thrown in.


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