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August 20, 2010
I got thinking about this hypothetical situation after I had a problem opening a document from a classmate.
I use Office 2003 and I have absolutely no interest in ‘upgrading’ to office 2007.
My reasons are: 1 – it costs money. 2 – it offers no additional features or services that have any interest whatsoever to me. 3 – it is a waste of extra space and system resources.
So there I am with a .docX file from office 2007… Funny thing, my PDA can open it without trouble in Textmaker, but I can’t do a damned thing with it on my computer without installing a compatibility pack from Microsoft. Of course Microsoft’s website won’t actually let you download that pack… the download page is broken, simply sending you to its internal search engine from the download page…
Now my solution is simple and I have already taken care of things (my PDA can open it and save as an Office 2003 in about 20 seconds – LUV WIFI)
BUT, I was thinking about what I would do without it…
Clearly MS would love for me to give them $$$ to upgrade to office 2007, but I would rather get testicular cancer than give $$$ for software I actively dislike.
So that leaves two Schroedinger’s cat type options – grab a pirated 2007 or go open source…
So now I started thinking from the Point of View of Microsoft.
if I were a software developer, if people are not willing to pay me for my software, what would I prefer?
Would I prefer that they pirate my software and use it that way or would I prefer that they use a free open source alternative?
What about you?
I can see two sides:
If they are using the pirated version, they will develop a familiarity and preference for your software. Perhaps later, they will decide that it actually is worth upgrading (confession – I have done this with both Photoshop and Vegas pro… $1600 dollars of income for Sony and Adobe resulting from 2 years of piracy that would never have happened if I had not been able to develop loyalty, familiarity and skill with those programs… I currently also teach those programs in university clubs and recommend them strongly – further potential and realized income for those companies)
On the other hand, If they use the Open source free version, this income will never be generated. The loss to the original companies will always be ‘perceived’ since there was never any chance that they would get any money for the same services offered by the software. Loyalty, familiarity and skill will be built up with the other program. Later, if that program decides to solicit cash (shareware type donations or by expanding to an ‘elite’ pay version), they are likely to get paying customers from the market segment of those who were not originally willing to pay YOU the software developer whose software the open source variant is copying…. What is even more curious about this is that users who choose this avenue of alternatives are generally more interested in using legitimate programs, hence when they do decide to put money into that type of software, they are more likely to pay than simply move to ‘the next version’ via a torrent or download.
I feel this is an interesting and possibly important question as it becomes easier and easier to get highly functional, virus free pirated software and illicit internet use becomes more and more accepted by the general populace (note the new features in the big 3 browsers with ‘incognito’ modes, presumably a nod towards porn and pirating websites).
Please note: This is not a question regarding piracy or recommending piracy. I am not asking for the POV of the consumer. It is asking the opinion of people who make and write (and market) software. This is not an ethics question.
to the last two "answers"…
I’m not looking at this from the point of view of a consumer, it was a consumer issue that got me thinking about how this issue might be viewed by SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS. IE: the other side of the fence.
In my case, the download page on MS’s site is or was broken for whatever reason and did not lead to a viable download, it was an endless circle. I can easily go to get the compatibility pack elsewhere too, but the point is that this lapse in service from MS when I was dealing with a time-sensitive document from across the other side of the world did not merit mucking about.
Further, this 2007 compatibility pack _should_ have been updated automatically with windows updates but again, for some reason it was not. This is a lapse of service on MS’s part and I cynically wondered if there might be a shadowy reason behind it.
I’m a photographer and I will occasionally give stuff away free if I feel it may lead to business later…
Hmm… you bring up a valid point. In fact, this has been argued many times over. Often companies like to perceive piracy lost sales on a direct 1 to 1 ratio. For instance, if MS Office 2007 was pirated 200 times, they would claim that’s 200 lost sales. However, that is not the case. Of those 200 pirates, only a small fraction would have actually purchased the software of their own volition.
But there are advantages to software piracy, as you mentioned. Once you get used to the software and deem it worth the price tag, you purchase it, something that might have been totally out of the question prior to your piracy. However, it’s not like anyone here is not familiar with Microsoft Office, so I’m not sure this methodology works well for big mainstream software like Office.
Alternatively though, I might deem an Open Source alternative to be too lackluster and poorly developed and would opt to purchase the retail software instead.
So I think it depends on your perspective and a number of other factors. Certainly given the choice we would all choose to pirate all software and purchase only the software we like.
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read comments (5)
August 20th, 2010 at 7:11 pm
Hmm… you bring up a valid point. In fact, this has been argued many times over. Often companies like to perceive piracy lost sales on a direct 1 to 1 ratio. For instance, if MS Office 2007 was pirated 200 times, they would claim that’s 200 lost sales. However, that is not the case. Of those 200 pirates, only a small fraction would have actually purchased the software of their own volition.
But there are advantages to software piracy, as you mentioned. Once you get used to the software and deem it worth the price tag, you purchase it, something that might have been totally out of the question prior to your piracy. However, it’s not like anyone here is not familiar with Microsoft Office, so I’m not sure this methodology works well for big mainstream software like Office.
Alternatively though, I might deem an Open Source alternative to be too lackluster and poorly developed and would opt to purchase the retail software instead.
So I think it depends on your perspective and a number of other factors. Certainly given the choice we would all choose to pirate all software and purchase only the software we like.
References :
August 20th, 2010 at 7:17 pm
Historically, many companies, from Wordstar (OK, Micropro) to Microsoft have built huge installed base from pirated copies.
A large company likes piracy for a number of reasons. The most obvious is that it builds an installed base and makes the software a de facto "standard." You could probably more properly say that it makes the file format a standard. You saw that yourself with your experience with DocX. Microsoft would rather you use a program that defaults to DocX, paid for or not, than to have you use another program that supports DocX but defaults to something else.
If they catch you with pirated copies, particularly if you are a business, they have leverage to force you to buy more of their software. Just because they *want* you to pirate does not mean they will *forgive* you for it.
BSA, the enforcement arm of Microsoft, has often used this technique to force companies who have been whistle-blown to sign exclusive purchase agreements with Microsoft, along with hefty fines.
Yeah, I know BSA is an "industry group." It’s still the piracy enforcement arm of Microsoft.
In the old days, some companies have used "amnesty programs" to get pirates to come in from the cold and get legal. Wordstar kick started its Wordstar 2000 product by giving a deal to anyone who had a previous copy of Wordstar, legal or not.
References :
August 20th, 2010 at 7:40 pm
You forgot the third option:
Get the Office 2007 Reader-plugins, allowing you to open Office 2007 documents with Office 2003 (they do some base conversion) – and I’ve never had any issues with the compatibility packs; may be a browser issue. There is no reason for MS to "hide" these behind quote broken unquote links…
Or the fourth:
Have the person with the newest version use the option "Save as" and select the Office97/2003 version.
In some cases, the whole conundrum can be avoided by using legally available workarounds – not always a preferable option, but an option nonetheless.
References :
August 20th, 2010 at 7:50 pm
You shouldn’t pirate software. Nor do you need to.
As a previous answerer said you can download the Office 2007 Compatibility Pack. If you have an issue with the finding the download page, check here: http://www.gara.com/free-software/software?SoftwareID=153
It’s true that software companies accept that some "casual" piracy will act to promote additional sales of their product. However, it is still illegal and you could find yourself in some trouble. In addition, companies that wish to generate license fees for their software have been developing sophisticated web-based activation models that will get progressively harder to beat.
When you use free and open source software you are alleviating yourself of all of those burdens.
OpenOffice is an excellent free alternative to MS-Office and it can read and write Office files.
You can find several free alternatives to expensive commercial products here: http://www.gara.com/free-software/
References :
August 23rd, 2010 at 4:16 am
The best route to a solution to document exchange is user education.
People should be taught that not all document formats are capable of being transmitted digitally to other users or people.
Only certain types of document formats should be used e.g. rtf, txt, pdf, and doc.
Return proprietary documents to the original sender and ask for a decent document format as mentioned above.
This should stop any company from creating monopolies and standards on their own.