Product Activation Comes to Business

To stop pirates and counterfeiters, Microsoft will require that all customers—including volume license customers—activate Windows Vista and Longhorn Server. First introduced in consumer editions, activation verifies that newly installed software is not pirated. Eventually, most Microsoft products will incorporate activation as well as “Genuine Advantage” validation, which continually checks that the software is still legal before it permits users to download patches or other types of updates. Expansion of activation will complicate software deployment for business customers, and it could delay some Vista deployments.

Addressing the Piracy Problem

Microsoft is expanding activation and validation checking to address continued costs due to software piracy, and emerging threats to security and privacy from pirated software.

A May 2006 Business Software Alliance (BSA) and IDC Piracy study estimates that piracy cost the software industry US$37 billion worldwide in software license revenue in 2005. Obviously, Microsoft is hurt by this lost revenue, but some partners, such as system builders, are also affected, because they must compete with pirates who are not paying for the counterfeit software they sell.