Microsoft Australia’s Nick Hodge doesn’t like that I highlighted in a post Microsoft’s failure with the Windows 7 beta launch.
I don’t know what else to call it though. Lets see: Microsoft says you’ve got a day to download 2.5m copies of a 3gb program, and the servers crash.
That’s a fail.
The problem going forward is one of economics. I understand from a PR perspective why Microsoft has now opened it up for 2 weeks with no cap on downloads (it’s a smart move PR wise), but the net result is possibly tens of millions of people with Win 7.
Oh, but it’s a time release, and expires August 1 is the response.
So what.
The sort of people downloading Win 7 are going to just as easily crack the time code when in the coming days someone releases a crack, and in effect Microsoft has just basically supplied the next generation of unauthorized copies of Windows. I’d say pirated, but lets see….they were given the copies by Microsoft itself.
Will some go out and buy the real thing later? maybe, but I’m betting it’s not a majority. Word of mouth may come into play, although the Win 7 reviews are mixed so far; some love it, some pointing out it’s just Vista with some interface improvements.
Microsoft has an opportunity to convert people back, and what better way than giving it to them. Better still, open source it, and then charge for support/ upgrades/ patches etc.
Millions of people are interested in Win 7, how much better would it be if Microsoft tapped into that community to make the product even better.
The gates open.
