James Delahunty
3 Mar 2005 20:57
Software Giant Microsoft has stepped up its battle against piracy of its products internationally, this time targeting Chinese Consumers. The company has said that some users of pirated copies of the Windows XP Operating System can get a big discount on a legitimate copy of the software by handing over some information to them. Users of pirated XP Home Edition could get a legit copy for 786 Yuan ($95) and users of the XP Pro Edition could get a legit copy for 1,270 Yuan ($153).
To claim this discount, Chinese pirated XP users simply have to fill out a form explaining how they came into possession of a pirated copy of the operating system. Microsoft is mostly interested to hear from consumers who bought PCs which had the operating system pre-installed. I would find it highly unlikely that any user who downloaded a pirated copy knowingly will be sent a discount.
In the UK, Microsoft made a similar offer, except they were offering free copies of Windows XP to users of pirated copies. However, if you look at the two countries, China blows the UK away in piracy rates so it would cost Microsoft a lot of money to give away free copies to Chinese users. Chinese users have to go through a mandatory test on the Microsoft download site that determines if their OS is legit before it allows them to download any updates. This test will be put in place for all users globally this year.
Source:
News.com