Piracy Helps Windows' Market Share

linktoinsanity · 2 Mar 2016 at 12:45

I read an article recently which rose an interesting point that Piracy actually probably helps increase the Windows market share. The reasons it gives are as follows:

1. Illegal copies of Windows are cheap and almost perfect substitutes to the original.
2. Competition from piracy is likely to cause lower prices of legal copies of Windows.
3. Adoption of operating systems are associated with network externalities, and piracy of Windows may therefore cause increasing differences in the benefit of using Windows compared to Linux.

Now I think all these are fair points, but what do you guys think? Overall I think it's sad if one of Microsoft's biggest real competitors are pirate versions of its own software, or does nobody else see it as an issue?

This thread is not about promoting piracy and I checked with the mods before posting. Please do not post advise on how to do it or where to get pirate copies from.

Source: http://www.neowin.net/news/piracy-could-be-helping-windows-marketshare

Six6siX · 2 Mar 2016 at 13:20

I agree that it helps market share - how could it not!? It gets the product out there and gets people using them that might otherwise have not done so. From a software point of view it also greatly increases perception and security the more people that use a more up to date version.

But I think this overall benefit for Microsoft is only the case because it isn't as aggressively 'defended' in a broad sense as say, piracy in the entertainment industry.

Interestingly, I think all three points you make are valid in a parallel to the entertainment industry.

1. Illegal copies of Windows are cheap and almost perfect substitutes to the original.

Illegal copies of music and films are sometimes of better quality than the copies you get through official channels (higher bitrate, no adverts, no unskippable trailers etc).

In fact, it's proven that people are actually willing to pay for the media but will often pay for services that offer content via illegal methods because the distribution is better, easier and cheaper.

2. Competition from piracy is likely to cause lower prices of legal copies of Windows.

I think this is true - look at the price of Windows 8 and 10 - significantly lower than previous versions (be it promotional upgrades or full versions) and I believe that as a result, more people have bought genuine that wouldn't have bothered before (myself included!)

The entertainment industry has dropped the ball here and made it more difficult and maintained the high cost of a lot of media unnecessarily despite this evidence.

3. Adoption of operating systems are associated with network externalities, and piracy of Windows may therefore cause increasing differences in the benefit of using Windows compared to Linux.

The more people that use it (whether it it genuine or not) the better as far as Microsoft is concerned, I think. It encourages familiarity with the environment, gets people building for the platform to tap into the user base, and in turn it all results in the core business licensing infrastructure (which is where I think the majority of the revenue comes from) moving towards using their software exclusively.

Essentially, regardless of the industry, piracy is competition. But not in the traditional sense. And as with any form of competition, the existing players should really be working to better themselves and make themselves more attractive to get the business rather than fighting the 'competition'.

There will always be people who get the content for free regardless but the majority of casual 'pirates' will quite happily pay for content or software if it is offered at an attractive price point, without unnecessary restrictions.

andshrew · 2 Mar 2016 at 13:33

Your link is broken at the moment.

Is the article talking solely about pirated copies or is it including "black market" licenses being sold for cheap as they are taken from regions where it is considerably marked down?

Is Windows piracy all that prevalent these days compared with the XP free-for-all era? At the very least it must be considerably more inconvenient now.

I don't think the availability of very cheap or pirated Window licenses actually has that much impact on the market share of say Linux. Looking at the bigger picture the majority buying PCs buy one which includes an operating system. They buy Windows because, for the most part, that is the only option being sold.

linktoinsanity · 2 Mar 2016 at 13:59

andshrew said:
Your link is broken at the moment.

Fixed.

Gze · 2 Mar 2016 at 17:29

So what percentage of windows users are using a pirated copy then?

Stoner81 · 2 Mar 2016 at 21:41

I think it does help a lot! People get a real feel for it first before they may or may not buy a legit copy of it.

andshrew said:
Is Windows piracy all that prevalent these days compared with the XP free-for-all era? At the very least it must be considerably more inconvenient now.

Windows 7 was beyond stupidly easy to get hence why we have stupid things like this BIOS licence crap and Secure Boot rubbish now. Windows 8 made it harder for sure and as for W10 I have no idea.

muon · 6 Mar 2016 at 02:22

Windows piracy is really irrelevant.

All OEM PCs have legal copies and 99% of businesses use real copies.

Gze said:
So what percentage of windows users are using a pirated copy then?

It will only be people that have self built PCs or have upgraded their OEM PC operating system (but Microsoft got money on the original OS).

Piracy is pretty rampant in developing countries, but they wouldn't be getting much revenue no matter what price they set anyway.

s452 · 6 Mar 2016 at 03:16

muon said:
Windows piracy is really irrelevant.

Piracy is pretty rampant in developing countries, but they wouldn't be getting much revenue no matter what price they set anyway.

I do have to agree, microsoft is most likely more interested in creating a user base in the developing countries than the profits it can make there. once everyone is using your products (even illegally at first) eventually they will get genuine copies

Akagi · 6 Mar 2016 at 03:39

I have two PC's running Windows 10. One of them has a licence, the other has a 'licence'. Both of them are exactly the same to use.

I have never seen any difference in licenced vs 'licenced' Windows. Even the updates work as expected.

opethdisciple · 6 Mar 2016 at 14:17

The litmus test for Win 10, will be when the free upgrades stops. Then will see the O.S stand on it's own two feet and fend for it's self in the market.

It's a good O.S, I like it. But so far it's had a pass in most peoples minds as it's been free to upgrade too.

And the end of the free upgrades is fast approaching!!