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Replying To:
"I told you so"[ Parent ] (none / 0) (#9)
by Reziac on Tue Dec 02, 2003 at 10:23:28 PM PDT

I've been saying something to that effect ever since Activation first reared its ugly head. To my firsthand knowledge, M$ has been talking about "software by subscription" since the Win2K preview seminars in 1999. Activation makes forcing upgrades simple -- just refuse to reactivate the old product, or require a fee that makes upgrading seem the less expensive option over the long run. Much as some companies used to refuse to replace dead install diskettes (requiring instead that you buy an upgrade, or do without. So far the biggest turkey I know of for such forced upgrades is Intuit's Quickbooks.)

BTW, go read all the posts on Slashdot by "Alsee" (http://slashdot.org/~alsee -- all those comments attached to the Phoenix BIOS article) re the Trusted Computing initiative being implemented in hardware, in a way that makes breaking it impossible (for all practical purposes). Very, very scary, and relevant to topics such as activation and forced upgrades.



~REZ~
[ Parent ]



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