Microsoft goes cheap

Microsoft has always done an an exceptional job of bringing the cost and complexity of software down to the level of the average person (or IT department, if you will). I may have my problems with some of the company’s business practices, but the original impetus behind its success was value for money.

Now, if only Microsoft were content to compete solely on that basis, we’d all like it a bit more and accord it a bit more credence.

But that’s neither here nor there for this particular post. No, this post inspired by Mary Jo Foley’s catching Microsoft in the act of getting all generous on us, in shipping a bundle of Windows XP Starter Edition and Office Home (among other things) to developing markets.

How do you keep growing the market for Windows and Office desktop software when you already have cornered in excess of 90 percent of the market?

One way is to grow the market….Microsoft is betting it can double the number of (paying, not pirated) Windows users, to more than 2 billion by 2015, with these kinds of programs.

Mary Jo points out that this move is surely designed to counterbalance any momentum toward the One Laptop Per Child project, and she’s almost certainly right. Microsoft has long dragged its feet on lowering prices in developing markets, only deciding to do so when Linux or other open source technologies have threatened its hold on a market.

As a result, piracy of Microsoft has flourished. Piracy, the sincerest form of flattery.

Regardless of its motivations here, Microsoft may well have been prodded into doing just the thing it needs to grow its market. Sometimes our worst enemies become our best friends as they force us to do that which is not comfortable, but which is necessary.

In all this, I’m reminded of Mark Shuttleworth’s comment that there’s “a huge difference between $.00 and $.01.” It will be interesting to see how much resonance “nearly free” has against “completely free,” speaking of acquisition prices.