too bad that we cant see a picture of gates face when Basescu told him that hehehehhehe
it was a ****ing shock hehehehhehe

Well... he deserved it. Maybe it will teach him to be fair with the Europeans. Someone should start some Vista import service and help EU with these crappy M$ prices.

althought I'm a romanian and yes ... its true, I do not agree with him saing it
that's not the attitude from a president

lol
he have point and all rights to tell that because EU dose not support Microsoft like US
p.s. your country dose not have a law against piracy (it seams that your president is a realist and that is good)

yes, we do have laws agains piracy since 1990

I really can't see it being much of a surprise to him .... and as was said it might be some initiative to treat European customers better ...

This points to the fact that Microsoft is just greedy. They know that when their products are pirated it still promotes those products. But they continue to foster dillusional thinking within the software industry. The key is not to make watered down versions, or step up validation initiatives, the REAL KEY is to lower the price of their OS software so that people can afford to buy a copy. Mind you there will still be some percentage of the populace that will refuse to pay. Still most people do have a sense of responsibility and fair play that leads them to pay for software they use and enjoy.

There are real people out there that blame us honest pirates for the high prices! Heresy!

finally someone honest most if not all born IT's are a product of personal use of illegal software.


p.s Unixlord in this struggle of pricing war hense piracy someone has to give away meaning that imm more then sure that if prices for "home" users even of very high end software should be extremelly cheap specially since that if you use it at home you will surelly wana have it elsewhere (work,school,ect).

so my buttom line is there is really not a chance that ppl will say hey why not try to stop ""piracy"" and give the software companies a chance to lower their prices rather then have them go on a COLLECTIVE limb and try another approach and finally realize like they are doing slowlly with licensed media files (in a way) that more ppl actually buy it when its more affordable..

p.s a large % of ppl wouldnt even buy the software if they had to pay for it, maybe coz its not worth its $ or maybe coz you cant afford it so this way you would just refrain from that kind of software or company and search for alternatives or just move along.

the fact that ppl use all that "pirated" software means they will always get the newest since its "free" and they will invest much more in peripherials mainlly hardware in order to satisfy their needs. so in this case software giants should consider either sue the Hardware companies for % of their sales or make an alliance bonding their mutual goals...

wanna know why people use linux, even though you can't play most games on it.


COZ ITS FREE

I know i shuld say that here but :

I neven ever in my life even holded legal copy of XP in my hand , not to mention installing it. The only one`s i did see actualy in firend house was bundled (free ) with Protech PC , that my mate got many years back. And that was actualy last PC that was buyed as a rig. The next one we were building from parts , so no bundle with them.

linux it's not always an option

you can't force ppl who work in public services who barely know win to go straight to linux; that's a crime
and there are sofware who can't be ported to linux via "Wine" or similar

Anyone remember the quote of the month idea we had a while ago ?

This is my pick for this month ROOOOOOOOFFFFFFFFFFLLLLLL

high prices is the reason off everything in this fu** country....can't u see that everybody want's to escape?how can a normal man buy an original vista at the price off 200 e...when his fu** salary is smaler....so..piraty is the best thing to folow..China-piraty-90%..so..Romania still hangs.

Hmmm..... How can I say this without offending some of you?

The fact is that most of the people on these forums are not what Statisticians would refer to as a "representative sample". And I suppose amoung you I don't conform to the "norm" either. It's not that I don't download software, because honestly I do. But if I enjoy the software, I normally want to support the developers by purchasing their product.

Now Microsoft, and it's operating systems, are an exception to this personal rule. In the past I've used a copy of XP acquired under illicit circumstances. Likewise I've aided others in installing the same. Frankly, I use Microsoft's OS because I want to play games and most of the software is designed for it. At the same time I don't really "enjoy" using their software. It's buggy and bloated, and I resent being "forced" to rely on it. However, I don't have any choice in the matter. Yet still I've bought legit copies for both of my computers, just for the sake of my own conscience.

One of the "benefits" is that I can get automatic updates. Presumably this helps provide better security, though I do have my doubts. But this same reason is exactly why I can't install XP for someone that doesn't have a valid license. Sooner, or later, they turn on Automatic updates... Then they want me to "fix" their system. See I've even had, what I thought were, "savy users" that couldn't keep their system up to date without the help of "automatic updates". They just couldn't wait for the alternative update sources to come through.

Now it seems, with Vista, everything has changed. The threats of malware, identity theft, and trojans is far greater than it was in the past. This combined with changes in the way Vista activates worries me. I know it's still early, and things could change, but I'm not sure "free copies" of Vista can be trusted. People may be forced by circumstances to find a way to buy at least an OEM copy of Vista, or they may be forced to stick with XP.

Many of you don't appreciate this fact. I don't either! (So Please don't misunderstand me!) I definately resent Microsoft for foisting Vista on us. I resent being forced to use software that is even more bloated, yet still lacking in beneficial features to justify it's cost. So the best thing I can do is Hold Off on buying Vista. Maybe, just maybe, someone will come up with a way to safely bypass Vista's activation features. We'll have to wait and see.

(Want to know what's Ironic? I participated in the Vista beta, and submitted several bug reports on my hardware incompatibilities. So Microsoft is sending me a complimentary copy of Vista. But I don't really want to install it on either of my current machines. I want to wait until I can afford to build a new system, and there is at least one real DX10 game that I want to play.)

Good points Cannyone and as for music any software I "download" and it helps me obtain what I want with it same deal ... I support that software company

Now on offending can't see this really offending anyone M8 its the damn honest truth and one of the best posts I have seen on this forum this year ....

Cheers