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Now that all the hoopla has calmed down, we offer this calm view of the 
implications of Wizard. The author is David Oliver (dave@newshare.com), 
Managing Director, Technology at Newshare Corp.

+---------------------------------------------------------------------+ 
| Bill Densmore -- President                     NEWSHARE CORPORATION |
| One Bank St., P.O. Box 367                    densmore@newshare.com | 
| Williamstown MA  01267                               (413) 458-8001 |
| The Internet's first news brokerage        http://www.newshare.com/ |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+ 

We've seen a lot of conflicting information on this up-coming Microsoft
Registration Wizard.  The entire issue sheds some interesting light on
both Microsoft and people out here in the field who are sometimes a little
too eager to see the company in a bad light.

As originally posted to the net, the Wizard was thought to be a "virus"
type program that sought to discover all your software and report what
it found back to Microsoft.  I had the image of an old East Bloc Foreign
Intelligence Service with data pouring in from all over the world being
analyzed by guys with strange accents and being sold out the back door 
to some "marketing black market" for American dollars instead of rubles.
This is the "bad cop" scenario - published first and eagerly passed around
among newsgroups.

Later word, states a bit more calmly that the Wizard is really a software
assistant that helps a site administrator with software registration 
procedures so that the company (Microsoft) can provide better customer
support to software users.  This is the "good cop" scenario.  Not too many
newsgroups focus on those companies who try to give high-quality support, 
so I can not be sure if Microsoft ran this idea by some customers first.

Hidden between these two "cops" is the fact that Microsoft wants to know
who is using its software.  Let's face up to something perhaps most people 
dont want to admit: software theft is RAMPANT, mostly because people assume 
that the chance of getting caught is virtually nil.  This is an unfortunate, 
base, human weakness that even the most virtuous "normal" people seem to 
have.  Is this fair, then, that Microsoft wants to know who legitimately 
uses its software?  Or is it a huge invasion of privacy?  If it IS an 
invasion of privacy, would we take the hit to get better customer service?

Though I do not always agree with the pricing and distribution strategies
of software companies, I *do* agree that the authors of software need to
be renumerated for their work.  It seems that because software is "soft",
most people dont see the inherent value of a single copy, or realize 
that it takes lots of people to write, document and support (note I have not 
mentioned the sales side).  This costs money, and if we are to continue to 
get software that is easy to install and use,, money needs to flow 
back to the authors.  Microsoft is of course a huge author of 
software, and they are trying to do something about making sure they 
get the proceeds from their work.  In many senses, that point is fair.
 
Of course, it is Microsoft's weakness that their "dominate the world" 
attitude is way too close to the surface.  It doesnt appear that the 
Wizard takes a "trust people first" attitude.  It is not clear in what
form information goes back to Microsoft, and it is not clear how they
will use the information they get internally (though they've apparently
stated they will not "sell" the information to 3rd parties).  It would
have been enough for the Wizard to search out only Microsoft products. 
How, for example, could information on non-Microsoft products be useful 
to Microsoft Customer Support?  Taken together with the MSN, this ability
to have a near real-time software market penetration data base for 
multi-vendor products is pretty powerful stuff. From a company that is 
ALREADY pretty powerful stuff, it is a bit hard to stomach, even in the 
"good customer service" light.
 
On the other hand, most Americans seem to have no problem with the fact
that their banks, their credit card companies, their insurance companies,
and their favorite retailers are widely trading information on buying 
habits, credit, income, etc.  And, I can see absolutely no benefit to the
customer from all this horse-trading.  So, what's the big deal about 
telling Microsoft about the software we use?  Or, are we just interested
in punishing Microsoft for its "dominate the world" attitude?  I 
personally believe that people who do not like the Registration Wizard
should "vote with their feet" and start buying other people's products.
That is much more likely to keep Microsoft "in line" than a smear 
campaign.

dave oliver
+ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- +
| Dave Oliver | Newshare Corp. Managing Dir. Technology | dave@newshare.com |
+ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- +



From owner-online-news@marketplace.com Tue Jun  6 20:26:51 1995
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