Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler SPAM cut rate software, What's the Story.

This is way off topic. Amidst the offers for products that will make shmuck bigger, knock off Rolexes, etc., I've been receiving spams offering fancy software at ridiculous prices. Anyone know what the story is with these offers? Are they for real?

Of course not. They're pirated software. Probably counterfeit made in China.

VioSoftware is legit and their prices are excellent. Beyond that, you're drifting into darker and darker areas of gray. I'd take my chances on some teenybopper's warez site before I threw away money on a spam offer.

Yeah, the OEM software is legit as long as you buy a piece of hardware with it (ie, a stick of RAM, a cable, a jumper, etc...) and those prices seem appropriate for OEM software. Remember, if you buy something out of a spam email, you're contributing to the problem EVEN IF you receive your product. Don't encourage them, please!

>>Yeah, the OEM software is legit as long as you buy a piece of hardware with it (ie, a stick of RAM, a cable, a jumper, etc...)

Is that enough ? I thought the OEM licensing agreements were all pretty clear that the software was for pre-installation and delivery on a new PC only.

For anyone outside the computer industry, most software vendors will sell their products much more cheaply to a PC manufacturer who includes their software with each new PC they sell. The discounts are pretty significant, can be up to 80% but normally more like 50%.

Anyone who puts a shingle up saying "lookee lookee I'm a PC builder" can usually buy at OEM prices which are usually lower than the CompUSAs etc.. pay for retail product. They're not supposed to re-sell OEM software to end users but it happens a lot and seems to be accepted by the SW mfgs.

IMO they would do better to just lower the retail price (since hardly anyone pays that anyways) and stop being perceived as ripping everyone off.

2x6, didn't you get a new car with a different tranny ?

In reply to:

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IMO they would do better to just lower the retail price (since hardly anyone pays that anyways) and stop being perceived as ripping everyone off.

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Agreed. Years ago, when I was scraping by and trying to teach myself the programs, languages & scripting I now use for a living, I never thought twice about going to a warez site or "borrowing" a copy of someone's software. I was never going to reach the point where I could get a decent job and afford to pay for legitimate copies of my own without getting free software to learn and train on. And now I do buy everything legitimately, and I wouldn't consider pirated copies. But I find it absolutely galling that when I upgrade my motherboard and hard drive in a month or two, I'm going to have to scream and plead with Microsoft to allow me to reinstall MY OWN $200 copy of XP Pro. There has to be some sort of reasonable middle ground, and it looks like we're moving farther and farther away from it.

It is legit to sell just a little bit of hardware with OEM stuff, per Microsquash. However, that reasonable middle ground seems to be tilting an awful lot towards the manufacturers. You can see the same thing with anything "intellectual property" including music, movies, etc. The customer (not consumer, dammit!) loses. Because we're all damn thieves anyway, dontcherknow...

/rant

dmn23- if you paid $200 then it must be a retail copy of xp if it is then it is your right to tranfer that license to a new computer provided that you do not keep it installed on the old. in this case which is an upgrade you will be fine. though you will have to call ms to activate but this is a totally automated process and takes all of 5-10 minutes.
with oem its one machine and thats it.
with regards to why doesnt ms just lower all the prices to the oem level. because a lot of people buy retail still and that would be giving profit away for know reason.
Cheap anything via spam or internet advertising is always a "you get waht you pay for deal" imo
Jake

Yes, bridgman, I should be 2x5.5spds now ... bought my first car with an automatic transmission ever, a 2005 Acura RL. Nice Bose sound system ...