Vista won't show fancy side to pirates

So it appears that Windows Vista is going to do a piracy check and then disable Aero if you don't have a licensed copy. That's right – it won't refuse to run or even cripple functionality, you just won't get translucent windows or animated flips. You see, Microsoft won't admit it, but they need piracy. It's one of the ways they keep the market share that they have. Keeping that market share is extremely important to their business plan. Of course, they don't want piracy to be completely rampant, so they do things like this. Considering most pirated copies of Windows are the corporate versions that don't phone home anyway though, I think there is more to it. By disabling some features like this, it makes the OS seem less like a commodity and more like something special. Once the OS level has been commoditized (something Linux is driving toward) there is just no way Microsoft could charge what they do for Windows. With the trend toward commoditization consistently growing and the Windows market share slowly being chipped away at, you realize how important Vista really is. Add in the fact that Mac hardware prices are falling along with the improvements in virtualization and emulation and things are looking worse and worse for Microsoft on the Windows front. In the end, the average consumer should benefit from this greatly. Not only will they have real choice for the first time in a long time but all OS's will need to remain more competitive. Most Microsoft products have stagnated recently since they didn't need to improve to survive. Luckily, those days are swiftly coming to an end.
–jeremy
Vista, Microsoft, MSFT, Windows, Aero, Open Source, Linux