Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Microsoft Windows XP : FREE
Two weeks ago, I went to attend a seminar in Nirma Institute of Technology given by Microsoft guys. It was related to VC++.Net. However, as the auditorium was full and so I was unable to attend the seminar. But they gave all of us a EXTREME CDs kit. I was surprised when I looked at the CDs. I was given a set of three CDs. And voilla! One CD was the licensed version of Windows XP - SP2. Other CDs were for VC++ express edition Visual Studio BETA and PSDK.
Well in India, many users have pirated copies of software installed on their machine. I was also part of that group. I always wish people use original software developed by me. But I my self was using pirated copies. The main reason is money. Other reason is you cannot buy original software easily in India. There are many vendors who claims to sell original software's but all of them quote differently. Like if some vendor will tell you price of Windows XP Pro SP-2 as
Rs. 5200/- per license , other will quote that to Rs.4,000/-. Now I never understand this price difference. I wonder why Microsoft is not selling their software through some retail chain like CROSSWORD. I heard that now they are planning to set up a new retail chain to sell their software. Late move. But, at last, a good move.
However if I were pressured to buy original software to use or develop software at this level, I would surely leave MS products or even ADOBE products and instead use Linux and JAVA. In database, MySQL is there.
But now Microsoft is understanding this point. Now they are giving Visual Studio Express Editions for free, for one year however. They are giving Windows XP also free for students. I HAVE NOT READ FULL LICENSE YET. Sun Microsystems is also giving many software for free (Sun Java Studio) or giving their source codes like SOLARIS . This is a good change. At least, for students like me!
Well in India, many users have pirated copies of software installed on their machine. I was also part of that group. I always wish people use original software developed by me. But I my self was using pirated copies. The main reason is money. Other reason is you cannot buy original software easily in India. There are many vendors who claims to sell original software's but all of them quote differently. Like if some vendor will tell you price of Windows XP Pro SP-2 as
Rs. 5200/- per license , other will quote that to Rs.4,000/-. Now I never understand this price difference. I wonder why Microsoft is not selling their software through some retail chain like CROSSWORD. I heard that now they are planning to set up a new retail chain to sell their software. Late move. But, at last, a good move.
However if I were pressured to buy original software to use or develop software at this level, I would surely leave MS products or even ADOBE products and instead use Linux and JAVA. In database, MySQL is there.
But now Microsoft is understanding this point. Now they are giving Visual Studio Express Editions for free, for one year however. They are giving Windows XP also free for students. I HAVE NOT READ FULL LICENSE YET. Sun Microsystems is also giving many software for free (Sun Java Studio) or giving their source codes like SOLARIS . This is a good change. At least, for students like me!
