Well, it’s "official": Microsoft is SUPPORTING piracy. Sure, not officially 🙂 but unofficially. How’s that? Well, it’s pretty strait forward:
– in the US, one Windows XP Professional retail license is $299
– in the US, my brother-in-law, working in some factory doing manual labor, earned a little over $1000 per month
– in Romania, somebody doing the same kind of job, earns around $250-$300 per month (actually, most of them are earning around $200 but if I take that figure it will only look worse)
– in Romania, one Windows XP Professional retail license is aproximatly 350 [b:c126e682ab]euro[/b:c126e682ab], which is around $500
Conclusion:
– one less-average working guy in the US can buy 3 WinXP Prof retail licenses from 1 month of work and still have some money left
– the same guy in RO can buy 1 WinXP Prof retail license from 2 months of work and have aproximatly the some money left
a little more "graphical":
– in order for the US guy to buy 3 licenses, he needs to work 1 month
– in order for the RO guy to buy 3 licenses, he needs to work between 5 and 6 months
And Microsoft is complaining about a high piracy level in the balcans. No shit!
