Quote:
Originally Posted by Penforhire
When I look back on the history of Microsoft products I can clearly see the market dominance of Windows and Office are due to how easily their early versions were pirated. They did not became the defacto standard because they were better. They achieved dominance because so many kids grew up using pirated copies. The funny part is how they started DRM and continue to tighten their DRM now that they have dominance. I don't know if that will prove to be good or bad for them but no-DRM is how they got where they are today.
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The problem with Microsoft DRM, as with it all, is that it's easily broken, and they actually provide versions to Students and others that are without DRM at all. For instance there's an Office version provided to MS Professionals dubbed 'the blue edition'. It has no DRM at all, no serial and is easy to make a 1-1 copy. This version becomes the standard 'Pirate' edition. Same goes for XP - there's a Corporate version that doesn't need a serial and the WGA checks are all legit. Again this version is the one that gets copied. The 'Pirates' use these versions. The regular customers have to deal with DRM, WGA, license keys, annoying phone call activations and renewing licenses after hardware changes.
DRM is defective, it affects only genuine customers.