Microsoft has
summed up the unprecedented decline in prices for licensed software in China. For example, the price of the MS Office package was reduced to $ 29 last September. The result of such an action turned out to be super-successful: for the year, sales of MS Office increased by 800%.
Steve Ballmer explained why it was China that lowered prices as low as possible. The fact is that the level of piracy on MS Office there is 95%. The logic is clear - the higher the level of piracy, the greater the discount must be given. Actually, this is the new Microsoft policy. For India and Brazil, they also lowered prices.
“And they say that crime does not bring profit. Bring, and how. How much should we steal in order to be able to buy Office at the same price? ”The envious Americans
ask .
By the way, a purely subjective remark on this subject. Look here. Russia's gold and currency reserves are approximately equal to the amount saved on pirated software. These gold reserves should be in America if all citizens abide by the law. It is doubtful that Russia would have at least achieved some kind of wealth if all the currency earned for oil and gas were given to foreign corporations for licensed software (and other intellectual property that we get for free on a giant scale). I think both Putin and Medvedev and others understand this simple truth well, therefore, WTO accession is squeaking, and the state practically does not fight piracy.
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Perhaps in China there is a similar picture. The ultimate level of piracy is actually beneficial to the economy, because billions of dollars remain in the country, and do not go to the swap of Microsoft shares.
It is almost impossible to refute these wild-sounding theses, because this is a classic conspiracy theory. World conspiracy against America. We will not pay them for intellectual property and bring down their economy. After all, in addition to intellectual property, they, in fact, have nothing.
Now you understand why Americans compare open source with communism. For them, this is the same conceptual threat.