Columnist: Microsoft could learn from Apple's Family Packs

Ha! I love the "You're doing it wrong" quote. Mr Mom is such a good movie.

"220, 221, whatever it takes"

Hi guys,
even though I'm a non-native speaker, I had a good laugh at your posts.

This thread starts from the quoted assumption that 33 pct of Leopard were sold as family packs.

Does that include pre-installed versions?
And where can I find how these numbers were gathered?
In my book, this would be called a successful up-sell (again, this may be a bad translation, sorry), or lack of single licences on the shelves of honest shopkeepers?

And I won't fall into the trap of schlepping MS into the equasion -- darn, I just did!

in some ways, microsoft is a victim of its own market penetration. we have the option of buying a mac or a PC, but people in less affluent countries don't have an apple store near them, so they make do with what they have, which usually ends up being a PC. those countries also often have high levels of piracy, so if microsoft didn't put in some sort of protection scheme, they'd be conceding a huge market to the pirates. activation isn't meant to stop piracy among the richest 10%, it's meant to curb it among the poorest 90% that can't afford a mac or even a legit copy of windows.

also, the relatively high percentage of leopard sales that were family packs doesn't necessarily mean that apple's trust is being rewarded by people who want to return the favor. if you think about it, a huge portion of leopard sales were probably made in apple stores. the average person probably walked into the store and asked one of the employees about leopard. the employee then asked how many macs the customer had, or maybe the customer asked if they need a copy for every computer. the employee then told them about the family pack, saying that it would be cheaper than buying 3 full copies because that's what they were trained by apple corporate to do. in the end, the customer walks out with a family pack, not because they want to thank apple for trusting them, but because that's what they were sold.

Microsoft can't do anything right.. even if they did something right. It's not possible, because they are Microsoft. MS could have come up with Leopard and it'd still get blasted for all the bugs. At this point in time, No MS couldn't offer w/o activation or anything.. It WILL get pirated, BECAUSE it's Microsoft Windows.

I don't know that Apple trusts its customers as much as it's willing to put up with a bit of piracy in order to gain marketshare. I wouldn't doubt that Apple implements some activation nonsense later on.

I disagree. Quite frankly, I am one of those trust worthy family pack buyers. But I wouldn't do it with Microsoft software. In my book, stealing from Microsoft isn't stealing at all. =)

The reason Mac users are willing to pay for OS X (especially this time around.. have you seen this thing??) is because it is a quality product. If I had to buy an operating system that I didn't really enjoy and thought was a pretty half assed product, then I'd be much less likely to pay, especially if it involves me handing over an assload of cash.
Apple is smart to trust it's users, but I'm not sure that it matters, because Apple probably doesn't make a ton of money from the OS. It's probably better for Apple if some guy with a pirated copy of Leopard walks around showing it off to people rather than if he has an older version of OS X. But with MSFT, EVERYONE already knows Windows, and they know that they don't really like it.
It's really all about the history of Windows vs the history of the Mac OS, especially OS X. MSFT showed everyone exactly what a completely crap OS is supposed to look like, all while Apple was kind of sitting in the background getting heaps of praise from it's users. Over the many years I've used Macs, I've converted around 20 people. That's a shitload. You don't ever see anyone going around saying I love MSFT because Windows is a really great OS. No one thinks that. No one says that.
It's especially cool this time around, because a couple of my friends obtained Leopard via less than scrupulous methods. I decided to actually purchase Leopard once 10.5.1 was released, and was incredibly happy with my decision. My friends were so impressed with the value of Leopard (again... have you seen this thing??) that they decided to purchase as well. You get so much improvement out of 10.5 over 10.4, that not paying makes you feel like a dick because you think about how they actually listened to users, worked long hours to get things straight, and fixed all the little annoying things we all hated (what the hell was the deal with DVD Player in 10.4 using command-0 for fullscreen while QT, VLC, and every other program in existence uses command-f?).

You think the two companies would work together--Gates owns half of apple...
Interesting Article...
webhostingpostgres.com

given the track record of piracy and microsoft os's, if they didnt include validation it would be somewhat stupid. and lets be fair, the fact that there are no family packs is NOT why vista is failing.

apple currently has trusting customers and it serves them well. but the more that they become more mainstream and more people start adopting, its inevitable that they will actually feel the hurt piracy puts on them. so unless apple is content with what they have now and arent going to push themselves any further, validation will come. (and really, whats so bad about validation. you feel bad when you have to show ID?)

The difference is: Microsoft does not make computers. Apple does, so to use the software you have to buy the computer. Apple could sell the software for $50 and they would still make a profit. Look at their server license. $999 for unlimited users. $499 for 10. Which is the better deal? duh $999.

Maybe one day Apple will buy Microsoft and then the frustration would ease.