Has Balmer got the right to blame piracy?

On the recent news I saw Steve Balmer (The current CEO of Microsoft) blaming software pirates for causing such a slow sales of Windows Vista and loss of revenue. It's just seem easier to blame someone than to reflect on their own faults doesn't it?

I think someone needs to knock some senses into that man.

Let's see some of the possible reasons on why could Vista has such a slow sales.

• Couldn't the fact that vista is still buggy and bug ridden, making it harder to penetrate the corporate market, they really want the software they use bug free.
• Difficulty in finding device drivers could also play a major role. People wouldn't want to chance their operating system only to find their device couldn't work on the newly installed OS. Gamers will think twice before upgrading, cause most display drivers are still not well made. For example ATI and Nvidia still struggle on implementing SLI and their crossfire mode. not to mention open GL support. Lots of printers are still left unsupported without any drivers. And a lot of other devices still couldn't run smoothly on vista. Microsoft advertises Vista to be a very advance and robust OS, why can't they at least support all devices that are available for a while now, newer video card are understandable, old printers however. I always thought plug n play is one feature that Microsoft just couldn't get right since Windows 95.
• How about the absurd hardware requirements? Most people says the bare minimum RAM for using Vista is 1GB of ram, so that at least user experience is bare-able, Microsoft says that the minimum is 512MB. I tried the RC1 myself using 512MB of ram, I just don't see how can other program runs on it since Vista itself already occupy 70-80% of RAM. Most offices uses a bare minimum for a computer, just enough so that their employee could run office programs and read their e-mails, with XP 128MB is barely enough and 256MB is common on office computers. I just don't think that most companies would consider the upgrade, well most smaller companies anyway, not only that they have to purchase an overpriced OS, most of the computers at their office has to be replaced. XP is at the point where it is fairly stable and still able to do most tasks. I really don't think that they will upgrade anytime soon.
• What about the price of the software? I just think it's just way over the top, making vista the most expensive client windows ever. They miss lots of deadlines on the release of Vista, and making us pay for the development cost. If it take way too long and too costly to develop, it's a miss calculation on their part, but we have to pay for it.

on the news recently, I read about several country that are flagged as high on piracy. Let's just take a closer look shall we. It might be just my assumption, but I think Microsoft is charging the same price for windows all over the world, and I just think it's just wrong, and it's really why piracy is so wide spread. India and China are in the list of countries being flagged as high in piracy. Maybe instead of launching attacks on these countries, Microsoft need to understand each and every single one of the countries better, especially people's income. Lets see the income per capita in these countries compares to The United States.

• According to this site: http://newsgd.com/news/china1/200608180006.htm China's per capita income is $1,740 more/less.
• According to this site: http://in.rediff.com/money/2005/oct/13income.htm India's per capita income is $750 more/less.
• According to this site: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-05-03-income-chart_x.htm The United State's per capita income is $34,586 more/less.

It just seems to me that countries that are plague with piracy, tend to have a really low per capita income. It's not that they love to buy pirated software, but more likely to be the last resort. We all would like to be in the cutting edge, but you can't really compare people who earns $750 a year to people who earns $34,000 can't we? To get a copy of windows Vista ultimate edition people in India has to work for half a year, that is if they can hold off eating and such.

Only if Microsoft adjust the pricing on their software, I don't think piracy will be so wide spread. Pricing has to remain acceptable. If it's way too far over their head people will resort to piracy, and I really mean adjusting prices, not crippling the software and making it cheaper, the so called "starter edition" of windows are simply crap, barely unusable.

Compare to Mac OS X, which is price at a more reasonable $130, not to mention family pack license can be purchase for as little as $190 for 5 computers. It's a real steal. Windows on the other hand, for $200 you only get home basic version, which is not comparable to Mac OS X, the version that is comparable is the ultimate edition and it cost $400 for a single computer.

Sure, make the promotion of buying up to 2 Vista home premium version for $50/each if we get vista Ultimate. But $500 for 3 licenses? where as $200 for 5 licenses on the mac? even better yet add $100 for a Mac Mini, a whole computer with OS INCLUDED.

Balmer, you're not there YET! Don't blame the people, understand the people.