Micrsoft free software

[tiDaLfAze23]

However Microsoft said the program’s goal was to enable as many people as possible the chance to "experience new features" by "giving customers a taste of the software and allow them to learn how it might be of use to their organizations in a positive way."

Uhm, where's all of our copies????? The public are the biggest customers,
and all we get is free security patches. I think we getting ripped off.

source

[nihil]

I wonder?

Uhm, where's all of our copies????? The public are the biggest customers,

I would have thought that institutional, government and commercial customers make up the majority of the big sofware companies' business.

It is common practice to send free copies of new releases to existing customers in the UK, and this makes good business sense:

1. You get the customer to perform extensive field trials and user acceptance testing for free.
2. The customer can test the software in their own environment, on their reference machines. Because you have provided the free software, you can expect to bring sales forward.
3. It is an advertisement, and would tend to stifle competition (which is what I think bill Gates is at )
4. All your major customers are on licence fees, so a few free samples actually costs you next to nothing (media + shipping).

OH, and I've got mine

Cheers

[jr05linux]

LOL me 3 i want me a copy of something besides the patches i have to download with my broken 16kbps internet

[NemorY]

Microsoft and free together, is an oxy-moron ! :-p. No but serious, i recieved like 5 CD's i ordered for free from them, and i saw that you can even order WinXP 64-bit Edition, you just pay S&H.