Ballmer says pirates to blame for poor Vista sales

“Ballmer admitted to financial analysts that the predictions for Vista had proved ‘overly optimistic’ and he blamed the pirates in China, India, Brazil, Russia and other emerging markets,” Nick Farrell reports for The Inquirer.

Farrell reports, “He said that there was software within Windows Genuine Advantage which could be dialled up by [Microsoft] to make it even more tougher for the pirates to take out… Of course he is ignoring the fact that a lot of people are not buying Vista because it does not offer much more than XP and Windows Genuine Advantage makes their lives a misery. Cranking up WGA might backfire.”

Full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “drew_ill” for the heads up.]

MacDailyNews Take: Ah, piracy, so that’s the problem. Thanks for clearing that up, Mr. Ballmer. And we thought it was people waking up along with the avalanche of “it’s a chrome-plated turd” reviews that had something to do with Stillborn, er, Long… uh, Vista’s slow sales. Moo.

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