Chinese Pirates to Get Free Windows 10 Upgrade

[Ernesto]

The Chinese are known for duplicating just about anything, from entire Apple stores to some of the world’s most famous cars.

Nevertheless and seemingly against the odds, easily copied items are doing well through official channels. China reportedly fueled record global box-office revenues in 2014 and even has official Hollywood movies available online before they air in the United States, ostensibly to beat piracy.

And today brings yet more good news for Chinese citizens who prefer not to pay for their content. When it arrives later in the year, Microsoft are going to gift free upgrades of Windows 10 not only to those who purchased Windows 7 and Windows 8, but also to those who pirated them.

Speaking from the WinHEC technology conference in Shenzhen, China, Terry Myerson, who runs Microsoft’s operating systems unit, said the plan was aimed at bringing the currently non-paying back on board.

“We are upgrading all qualified PCs, genuine and non-genuine, to Windows 10,” Myerson told Reuters. “The plan is to ‘re-engage’ with the hundreds of millions of users of Windows in China,” he said.

In January this year Microsoft said it would offer free upgrades of Windows 10 to legitimate users of Windows 7 and Windows 8 but this is the first time that pirates will be given an official free pass.

The big question now is how this news will be received in the West. In the United States, for example, pirate users of Windows 7 and 8 will be expected to pay top dollar for Microsoft’s newest OS if they too want to jump aboard the legit train. That may raise hackles.

However, the fact that Chinese pirate users will get a free upgrade of Windows 10 could open up avenues for Western pirates to masquerade as their Eastern counterparts in order to avoid paying. Exactly how that will play out will remain to be seen, but it’s more than likely that a ‘pirate’ solution will be found, one way or another.

In the meantime many pirates will remain with their current operating system until a stable version of Windows 10 becomes available, whether that hails from China or elsewhere.

source

[ltoiau20]

As a public employee, I do a lot of work for free, you'd be surprised.

Of course they should be paid for their services, I'm not saying they should work for free. I'm saying they should price their products according to the reality of the country. China is historically a poor country, of course they will pirate till death. And I mean pirate the market leader, market default, not a free, non supported similar.

Here in Brazil Windows cost around R$ 600. As a poor country, most of population receive around R$800. That's completely out of range for an almost entire country and is thus, pirated like there is no tomorrow. You have pontual promotions, like that for Windows 8, which helps, but is not enough, and not for enough time to change and entire country's perception of your product.

Now, in US that is indeed illogical, since every people have good, high payment jobs and everyone can afford software. The salaries are high enough for you to buy software at that price and still can eat the rest of the month. Different prices for different countries/realities.

Finally, you may get more knowledge from the below page:
http://www.windowscentral.com/you-can-up...on-windows
http://www.lostwindowspassword.com/windo...-know.html

[stormium]

Now, in US that is indeed illogical, since every people have good, high payment jobs and everyone can afford software. The salaries are high enough for you to buy software at that price and still can eat the rest of the month. Different prices for different countries/realities.

that's a load of crap and a broad generalization. a large portion of the population lives below the poverty line here too and the cost of windows 10 will be out of reach for them... unless it comes with their computer, i can't see that demographic shelling anything for it... and a new computer is out of reach for them too...
so, in the end... they'll come here and get a copy of their microcrap software... and i'm okay with that.. altough i'd prefer if they tried a free distro like umbunto just so they could have a quality operating system for a change.

[RobertX]

What's Umbunto? Do you mean "Ubuntu?"

stormium is right. In some places, mothers on welfare are forced to travel to long distances and do work. The programme that facilitates this is called "Welfare to Work." There was a case when one of the mothers who was in that programme was evicted by her landlord despite her employment. High payment jobs indeed.

[stormium]

umbunto... is my spell check's way of giving up. ;-)

regardless... giving out free upgrades to the chinese and only the chinese is a load of crap... then again, i don't have a very high opinion of their products... so whatever.

[Hary1946]

Not pretending to believe that you would be able to charge people (in China) who have proven that they won't pay is...a step forward

But

Continuing to pretend to believe that you will be able to charge people (outside of China) who have proven that they won't pay is...a step back to where you were in the first place.

And

Believing that you will be able to get away with pretending and not pretending at the same time is a step into a padded cell

[coldmoon]

Just so everyone knows Microsoft is giving away free Windows 10 upgrades to any users who have a PC, phone, tablet, or other devices that currently run windows 7 or higher.

---

Also @ltoiau20 you seem to know nothing about the U.S. because there is a good portion of the populous that live below the poverty level and it gets harder and harder for some to even find job as our jobs get outsourced to quote unquote poorer nations who will work for less.

[Hary1946]

Although ltoiau20 is wrong about one of his facts he has highlighted a genuine dilemma facing many businesses today. One which could be interestingly debated.

Digital products and services (and, increasingly, physical ones) can be delivered globally for pretty much the same cost, but customers' ability to pay varies widely; and the customers' ability to share post-purchase undermines a businesses ability to "charge what the market will bear".  It can either price it's products/services so that they are bearable by the most impoverished potential customers, or take steps to protect it's margins by shutting those customers out and charging higher prices.

While the latter is arguably "unfair" the alternative is worse, because businesses do need to make a profit to survive and continue producing products and services.

All joking aside, Microsoft is trying a new way of dealing with that problem. It is actually commendable. [I don't think it will work, but at least they're trying rather than just sitting there with their heads buried in the sand.]