Microsoft and piracy: Try, try again
By Mary Jo Foley, ZDNN
January 12, 2001 12:20 PM PT
Microsoft says that when it comes to customer privacy, it has learned its
lesson.
Customers will decide whether that's true later this year, when Microsoft
delivers its first release of the new Whistler version of Windows,
featuring "product activation," a revised version of anti-piracy technology
that was widely criticized in Office.
Product activation requires purchasers of Microsoft software--whether they
obtain the product at retail or preloaded on PCs--to "activate" the
product, either by phone or the Internet.
When Microsoft issues its next test version of Whistler, the successor to
Windows 2000, in the next month or so, a large number of testers will
obtain first-hand experience with product activation. Word of the Windows
product activation feature leaked out this week via a smaller group of
Whistler testers, and many customers expressed skepticism about Microsoft's
intentions.
Whistler isn't the only product slated to feature product activation
technology. Microsoft also is planning to include the anti-piracy code in
numerous other products on tap for this year, including Office 10, the
successor to Office 2000; Visual Studio .Net; and Visio 10, said sources
close to the company.
Microsoft executives said the company has made no decision whether to
license product activation to other software makers who might be interested
in the technology.
"We've looked at what other companies have implemented (as anti-piracy
measures) and learned from that," said Allen Nieman, a Microsoft product
manager for Windows.
Nieman acknowledged that Microsoft also learned lessons from its past
mistakes. The company took its lumps a few years back with the original
anti-piracy scheme it devised for Office.
Microsoft piloted product activation technology in seven countries,
including the United States, when it launched the test and final versions
of Office 2000.
Product activation, which is mandatory, is different from product
registration, an optional process in which consumers provide their names,
product information, and contact information.
Through activation, a Microsoft-run clearinghouse generates a random
"installation ID." This installation ID is based on the product key used
during setup and the hardware configuration of the PC, according to Microsoft.
The product activation technology detects the hardware configuration on
which the product is being installed, but not through any kind of scanning
of a customer's hard drive, Microsoft executives said. The technology does
not register the make, model, or manufacturer of the PC or peripherals
attached to it. Nor does it register any of the software applications
loaded on the customer's machine, Microsoft said.
Consumers will be able to change their hardware without having to
reactivate the product, unless they "completely overhaul" their machines,
at which time, reactivation may again be required, according to the company.
With the product activation feature in Office 2000, Microsoft allows
customers to install one additional copy of Office on their laptops--in
addition to their desktops--but requires a second activation and
verification of the license.
Future Microsoft applications are expected to be similar. Microsoft
executives said the addition of new software or software components won't
result in customers needing to reactivate, but an install on a reformatted
disk of a product-activated product will require consumers to obtain a new ID.
All this sounds promising, but Microsoft still needs to win over skeptics,
Gartner analyst Chris LeTocq said.
"It would be good for them to get third-party certification of the fact
that they aren't collecting user data," LeTocq said, "but they probably
don't want to risk that (product activation) algorithm being broken."
LeTocq added that Microsoft's product activation scheme is aimed at halting
"casual copying" more than large-scale software piracy.
"Microsoft is in revenue-maximization mode right now," LeTocq said. "Casual
copying by end users is what they're really fighting with this. And from a
licensing standpoint, they have a right to do that."
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