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Monday, June 06, 2005
 
Scoble on Casual Software Piracy
Scoble's post last week on Microsoft's rencent marketing campaign is interesting, but I got stuck on one throwaway sentence right at the beginning.

In the list of reasons that people give him for running Windows, number three is: "[m]y friends have Windows and I know I can get support and software from them."

Interesting...I kinda doubt that it's homebrew software or pointers to interesting and useful shareware that these people are talking about. I hadn't thought about it in quite this way before, but there's an interesting theory to spin out here...does software piracy actually support Windows' dominance in an odd way? How many people do have stuck with Windows because their friends could provide a copy of Office, the graphics packages that they want, or a supply of "free" commercial games?

Definitely a B-list issue when compared to something like raw price or OS fear, but an interesting possibility. If this is a factor, then how does the online license activation requirement in more recent MS software affect this cycle?

...still sixteen kinds of busy today, but trying to clear my head (and the blogfodder folder) a little this morning...enjoy...
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