When OS X Leopard was released, my Mac was fortunately new enough to qualify for a special £5 upgrade, but the vast majority of users had to pay about $129. Snow Leopard was different; for an upgrade, Apple only charged about $30 (£25).

£25 for a piece of software, even one as important as an operating system, is much more realistic than a £100 pricetag. I think it is unreasonable to ask personal users for anything more than £60 or£70

High price tags force people to piracy, yet for many years companies like Apple and Microsoft continued using them. I suspect Adobe loses a small fortune over its £600 charge for Photoshop, because I imagine that most of their end-users actually acquired the software illegally. Adobe kindly charge students a discounted rate of only £150: how they expect a student to afford that amazes me.

High price tags force people to piracy.

I have no problems pay $10 or $20 for a decent piece of shareware, and I often buy bundles of discounted shareware, but I dislike being expected to pay a fortune for a commercially-developed program which has hundreds of features which I’ll never even need to use.

Microsoft try to offer users packages containing only software they’ll need, but this confuses many.

Only one package should be sold. That package should only include essential programs, with additional programs being sold individually if needed. Not only would this be beneficial to the average company, but would allow companies like Microsoft to accurately judge the popularity of software like OneNote based on the demand for it

I have been reading Freedom of Information Act requests recently and I came across one filed to Merseyside Police, in February 2007, that I had to share. I apologise if someone has already reported this; I found the information in the public domain and Merseyside Police removed the name of the person who filed the request, so I can’t credit them.

Somebody asked Merseyside Police about their IT infrastructure. They asked some questions like ‘How many desktop computers do you have?’ but then some more interesting ones like ‘Of those server computers what is the Operating System and Version are they using?’ and ‘Has Open Source comparative been review [sic] for the Operating System?’.

Apparently, it isn’t in the ‘public interest’ to tell us which web browser, office suite, email client or operating system they use. Nor is it in our interest to tell us even if the software they even considered open source solutions. Whilst they noted ‘Accountability of Public Funds’ is important, it’s clearly not that important. Why? Apparently, telling us what operating system or web browser they use would ‘leave Merseyside Police Systems subject to potential attack from hackers.’

Perhaps if Merseyside Police used secure software (or could at least confirm they considered open source solutions), they wouldn’t have to worry about being subject to potential attack!

i’m is an initiative which Microsoft started back in March which aimed to generate money for charity. All it required was for American (yes… it was limited to America) users to place a code in their display name which generates this emoticon: .

Every time a conversation involving an American user (either sender, recipient or both) takes place where this icon is present in a user’s display name, a small donation is made to charity.

There are 10 different codes to make the icon, each code raising money for a different charity. The codes are (charities they benefit are in brackets): *red+u (American Red Cross), *bgca (Boys & Girls Clubs of America), *hsus (Humane Society of the United States), *naf (National [as in the United States] AIDS Fund), *mssoc (National MS Society), *9mil (ninemillion.org), *sierra (Sierra Club), *help (StopGlobalWarming.org), *komen (Susan G. Komen for the Cure) and *unicef (UNICEF).

The beauty of i’m is that whilst many people won’t be aware that by placing the ‘i’m’ icon in their display name that they’re helping charity is that they do it and Microsoft will still donate money.

Whilst it’s a shame it’s limited to the United States, I think this is quite a nice act of charity by Microsoft who have already donated nearly US$100,000… although they promise that they’ll donate a minimum of US$100,000 (or so Wikipedia their presspack reports) to each charity.

Microsoft haven’t said how much they’re paying per conversation and US$100,000 is a pittance to them I guess every little helps.

It would be nice to see that US$100,000 raised so far to be multiplied by at least 10… but I guess it’s Microsoft and some things won’t ever happen…

Tags: microsoft, windows live, msn messenger, i’m, im