Microsoft settles out of court with Dubai 'pirate' retailer

Posted by: langyaw Tuesday, 20 April 2010 12:24 PM[UAE] - UAE

with so many IT techies going the way of LINUX, I wonder why companies are still hesitant implementing a LINUX network. I challenge you to install any flavor of LINUX on your machine, side by side with windoze, and see for yourself how LINUX leaves windoze behind in the dust, in terms of speed, performance and security (there is no need for an anti-virus in LINUX because it is a hostile environment for virii to survive!). you could actually turn on 2 machines simultaneously, 1 running windoze & the other LINUX, and see immediately the unbelievable time difference in getting to the desktop. just my 2 cents. - langyaw

Posted by: IT Guy Monday, 19 April 2010 5:34 PM[UAE]

Neither do my Saudi office or any other regional office receive calls from Microsoft. Only the Dubai office receives such calls despite those regional offices being the source of the pirated software. Obviously, the fact that the people in your training centers are quite commonly using pirated Microsoft installations on their laptops show that the companies they work for are small unmanaged organisations and mostly likely work off ADSL networks without traceable network IPs. When you move away from training centers and start to work for larger corporates, you stop believing in coincidences.

Posted by: P.A.S.S. Monday, 19 April 2010 1:52 PM[UAE] - UAE

Right Mr conspiracy - I work for a company that deals with training centers all around the region. I come across pirated copies daily and in no cases do these people get calls from MS about their software. Stop spreading unsubstantiated stories.

Posted by: IT Guy Monday, 19 April 2010 1:38 PM[UAE]

As an IT manager, it's been a standard practice to carry out regular software audits over the years to ensure the company I work for remain fully compliant and within the licensing agreements for the software we use. The cost of an OS or MS office installation is peanuts compared to some of the advanced software we have used over the years, some even costing as much as $40,000 per license. But like many, we have also faced the possibility of a visitor using an illegal license on a laptop and we naturally take immediate steps should we discover this. However, it has become quite obvious that Microsoft are also notified of this through a hidden notification packet and based on the originating IP address, we have received phone calls from Microsoft within a day or so. They do not tell you the reason why they have called, instead, they probe for information by using bully tactics on the phone which end in accusations and threats should we deny the use of pirated licenses. They should already be aware of the large numbers of legitimate licenses already in use on our network and I would be grateful if they simply told us that there is a pirated license being used on our network so we can track it down. But no, they don't take this into consideration they just threaten to visit with a government officer. It is for this reason that I have refused to upgrade from a very old version MS Office, preferring to use alternatives such as IBM's Lotus Notes. Since their last abusive phone call several years ago, we have converted many of our servers to run Linux. We have also changed most of our PC workstations to Macs and will certainly never go beyond Windows XP on the remaining PCs. Yes, it's more expensive and also a nuisance to do all of this but Microsoft have made me make the switch without the help of Apple's advertising through their own arrogance.

Posted by: Brock Stathom Monday, 19 April 2010 11:44 AM[UAE]

You guys all seem to gloat over having tremendous experience working in IT. Do you know how expensive it is to keep on buying software everytime there is an upgrade? And Microsoft keeps on doing the obvious that is releasing their buggy versions first for a bucketload of bucks and later having patches to be downloaded. Later they begin to release a brand new version, costing much much more! I am all for supporting pirated versions just so that you can at least try the damn software and see if it really is worth investing your hard earned cash. Can't stand Corporate bullies!