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"Bruce Byfield" <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com> wrote
> I don't use pirated software - ever - so I have nothing to fear from
> product activation, but I consider it an insult and an inconvenience. If
> there are many other people like me, then product activation may have
> the opposite effect than what's intended: instead of preserving sales,
> it may actuallycause sales to decline even more sharply.
Companies like Adobe, Microsoft, IBM, etc. don't make strategic moves without
analyzing the impact. Since MS has been using online activation for a few years
now, there is data on how many users really abandon these products. While I do
not have direct access to such data, my sources tell me that there has been no
significant change in market share with the introduction of activation. Most of
the complaints regarding activation are from people who were never users in the
first place or from users that did not pay for the product.
Furthermore, changes in market share are much more likely due to product
features than activation. In general, organizations do not make purchasing
decisions based on the specifics of licensing. They make it based on price and
capability. Licensing is an afterthought.
Personally, I don't much care for activation either. And there are plenty of
ways to circumnavigate it. I suppose, however, it does cut down on causal
piracy.
However, from a business perspective, I completely understand why these
companies implement it. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who simply do
not feel they need to pay for software. And rather than use freely available
open-source products, they steal commerical software. As such, activation is
essentially forcing people to confront a very simple choice: either pay for
commercial technologies (and enjoy their benefits and weaknesses) or use free
open source products (and enjoy their benefits and weaknesses).
Andrew Plato
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