Readers' Comments

Reader Comments on Aardvark Daily 5 March 2003
Note: the comments below are the unabridged submissions of readers and do
not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher.
From: Microsoft
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: XP Trial Version

This is absolutely not a Microsoft NZ initiative and my guess is that the
OEM in question is utilising Windows XP 120-day trial packs. If this is
the case they are violating the terms and conditions of the trial pack
license. The last thing I want to see are customers being shortchanged so
if you're willing to tell me who the OEM is I will contact them and
request that they cease this practice

Brett Roberts
Manager - Small Business and OEM
Microsoft NZ




From: Grant
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Trial version of XP

I noticed that shortly after Dick Smith started
selling 'Terminator' systems for about $1000 that run
Mandrake Linux (and come with the full OpenOffice suite
that is awesome compared with Works etc), other companies
such as Dell/PC Company started selling systems at a
similar price.

Given that the PC Company for one are putting MS software
(valued at anything between $200-$400+ by the BSA) on the
machine, they must have a massive discount by MS.

I wonder if a small amount of competition is starting to
affect MS pricing... ?




From: Owen
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: WinXP Trial

Actually they arent the first to do something like that,
Dick Smith Electronics have stopped shipping their
computers with Microsoft Office, and instead installing
them with Open Office. Which means the price is reduced
somewhat




From: Alan
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Microsoft "Free Stuff" vs. Free Stuff that works ...

Personally, I think it doesn't really matter if it is MS
themselves doing the trial-version ploy (to be expected) or
the vendor of the shop, MS will eventually lose out because
their stuff doesn't work half the time and everyone elses
does. Simple as that really.

Basically, instead of trying to take over everyone elses
business, making the Internet insecure half the time and
releasing everyones passwords on Hotmail every other month
due to "technical problems we had that are now being fixed
as you read this" (Yeah, right), they should have
concentrated on actually making an OS that works correctly
(being able to load within an hour of starting the
computer would be awesome for a start), and they might have
been respectable still.

Which is not to say that all free stuff is great, but one
has to ask: who *could* trust a company whose founder openly
acknowledged at one point that they had a policy of rushing
pretty untested software to market because of commercial
necessity and the demands of the customers. Ah yes, the
demans of the customer ... WHAT DAMN DEMANDS?. I mean who
demands software that is really bloatware, takes up too much
space on the harddrive and is, more often than not,
INCOMPATIBLE WITH PREVIOUS VERSIONS OF THE SAME BLOODY
SOFTWARE DUE TO "GREAT IMPROVEMENTS"??




From: Russell Holland
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Re "Google: Net Hacker Tool du Jour"

"typing the phrase "Select a database to view" -- a common
phrase in the FileMaker Pro database interface"

When Filemaker pro came out we had a couple of prospective
clients feel they could "roll their own" web database,

Knowing the security issues and industry best practise is
what you pay web database folks for - to ensure this kind
of thing doesn't happen,

Not knocking the software - just pointing out you get what
you pay for,
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