Who thought this was possible

WHILE THE PIRATED alpha version of Longhorn is already for sale in Bulgaria, Microsoft says the real thing will not be with us until 2006.
Speaking at the Gartner Symposium ITxpo, Gates said that "People are speculating that we're out in '06 sometime - that's probably valid speculation -- but it's not a date-driven release."

IT Hacks and analysts have been playing spot the release date for Longhorn since Windows XP came out in 2001. The date has been pushed back as the Redmond giant has tried to avoid as many security glitches that marred the early days of XP.

Meanwhile the Bulgarian pirates have been doing a roaring trade in Longhorn alphas. Seemingly the main buyers have been curious westerner tourists going to the country's capital, Sofia.


Source: The Inquirer

Buying Alpha software lol hmmm perhaps they dont know you can download it..... of course they probably sell it there for like half a dolar... at those prices I wouldnt bother downloading either LOL

thanks for the old news, Inquirer. It kills me to think people even use the Alpha, nevermind pay for it.

why not i mean half a dollar aint much and i wouldnt mind tyin out somthin new

you cant buy Alpha software anyway and I wouldnt sugest using it even if you could buy it from the company itself.... going to be buggy as hell and have like zero support. Microsoft has enough money in the bank to buy anything that would make the next version of windows better if they could they would but I do agree software piracy is a bad thing especialy in places like asia where everything can be bought for like 1$ or less and they have no idea how many copies are made there... thats all money being stolen from mostly american companies. I have to say though that if prices where more fair people would be less willing to steal. Games sold for 50$ back in the 80's and 90's for computers back in those days if you sold 100,000 copies it was a hit and they made money fast foward to now the cost of developing has went up 10X what it was but the base for selling is up 100X so selling a million copies isnt that hard these days. Now say you droped the price down from 50$ to something more reasonable... I bet they would sell even more and there wouldnt be a problem with piracy...

do you think $50 is alot of money for 3+ years work?

No but 50X1 Million is.... do you not think that is enough ? and besides the people who actualy do the work hardly get any of that 50$ as you would know.... or perhaps not. LOL

if they werent getting paid enough, they dont have to stay.
so i'd bet they get enough to stay.

most of the ppl working on the OS dun get paid that much..most is kept by the boss..if they charged less for the product they would get even less.

not necessarily, if they charged less maybe they could market their OSes to the huge markets of China or india.

it's all pirated over there, why? the prices are simply too high for them to afford.

this is not simply the case with foreign countries but also with average US and european citizens, I'm sure many people would buy things legitimately if they could afford to.

so, ultimately, it could actually increase profits!

actually many ppl would be surprised on how few poeple are involved in game devlpoment. For exmple Black & White had lik 15 ppl on it for 3 years. So 50x1mil for 3 yrs for 15 ppl is more dan enuf

depends...on countries outside of 1st world range, 1/9 ppl even HAS a computer, so proffits wouldnt increase like you think Rezza.

no deftone i tink dat figure is higher. i myself kno 18 ppl who have Win XP. only 1 has original, bcuz it costs 4000 (100$) for home and 15000 (350$) for pro

well almost every new computer has an OEM copy of XP.
and every Dell has to be bundles with a MS OS. so there is a ton of profit.
but I still think $100+ isn't a bad price for what it is.

100$ american sure thats not alot of money some one can work at Mc Donalds and make 200$ a week.... Now fly on over to say India or South America where some one has to work like a month to make 100$ If you had to work a whole month just to buy Windows you wouldnt say "100$ isnt that bad" hell work 2 weeks just to buy a game ??? If some one told you that you had to pay 400$ for say Halo you would freak out.... I bet you might even think about just downloading it... I know I would... I do buy my software (although sometimes when it becomes availiable on the net first I download it then buy it 2-3 days later) Im not pro piracy but I can see why people do it. In america yeah 50$ for a game 200$ for an OS is fine in another country the scale of economy is waaayyyy different so for them piracy isnt an option its about the only way they can get to play the games or use a computer (downloading Linux is free of course but then you need a fast internet connection...) Hmmm thats odd I just realized that WinXP is one CD while alot of the Linux Distro's are 3-4 CD's whats up with that ???

yo msagent. thankx 4 taking into consideration us countries like india. it feels nice to have some one out there who knows how bad the situation is out there in the rest of the world. also note : in india 95 % of the windows user have pirated copies instaled. and trust me the piracy wing couldnt even careless in india owing to the fact that they themselves may be using pirated softwares!!! the government now wants to modify windows ( which mic. of course wouldn't allow ) and so they're migrating to linux which is really flexible. microsoft now realises that if india like china shifts totally to linux ...they would loose a BIG market. so they are even willing to share the source code with da government of India!!! wonder how long it will be b4 the CURROPT guyz @ will leak the source code which was given to them on GOODWILL!!! lol....

Well no problem, trust me not all Americans are assholes although sometimes it might seem that way lol I know that like here in Florida Orange juice is more expensive then it is in other states in the US I dont know the reason for that but I do know that something like that should be done for software where its more expensive in the US and cheaper everywhere else. I wouldnt mind doing it this way becouse I dont think the prices would go up here at all and I think it would knock piracy down a notch (although you might still see some bootleg Alpha software couse its just so cool !!!) Things like that almost make me wish they had venders here that sold cheap burnt Alpha disks. just to try out you know

Still thats pretty bad I just put in an aplication for a job that pays computer techs 30$ an hour here (you have to have your own truck and go out to companies and fix there network and computing woes) so if I got that I would be making Aproximatly 1,000$ a week american.... I feel bad making that kind of money thinking of it this way now... I mean for my home buisness I charge 20$ an hour to do in home service calls and teaching people how to use there own systems.... (Although it makes me feel better about it when poeple tell me I am a better teacher then anyone else they have tried...)

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