(look at product activation as a really bad example)

-Carol Haynes (August 20, 2010, 03:53 AM)

It's all about the implementation for me. I use a few games & apps (plus Windows itself) that use activation and I don't mind it at all because it doesn't get in my way and is reasonable (e.g. usually allows re-activation if you don't do it too frequently, so you can reinstall you machine every so often even if you forget or are unable to deactivate things).

I did cause Windows to deactivate once when I was troubleshooting some hardware (added/removed something enough times that it decided something was up), but that was resolved with a 5 minute phone call, even though it was midnight on a weekend, so it didn't bother me.

On the other hand, there are products I want but will not buy because of the DRM. e.g. Some Ubisoft single-player games now require that they can talk to authentication servers constantly; if the server or your net connection has a hiccup (or god forbid you want to playing the game because the net is down and you have nothing else to do!*) then the game exits. That's taking things too far and I won't pay for it.

(*Then again, that problem affects things like Steam -- you need to be online to start it unless you've planned for offline usage in advance -- but I still buy games on that. Steam's DRM does annoy me in some ways but it also provides a lot of convenience on the flip-side so it's sort-of even, I guess.)

For me, it comes down to "does it get in my way or bog my machine down?" If it doesn't then I don't mind it. I know other people feel more strongly, though. Maybe they've run into issues that I haven't.

and MS is dropping upgrade pricing on flagship products such as Office. What's the betting that Windows 8 won't have upgrade pricing.

Wow. I had to look that up to confirm it. I hadn't heard about it and thought surely there was some caveat or something, but you're right.

That seems really wrong to me, unless what they've done is reduce the full-version pricing to what the upgrade pricing used to be, in which case it's to the customer's advantage (or no different for people upgrading) and fine.

(But otherwise, they're effectively asking people to pay full-price again for something that they already own a large part of. That seems especially poor with Office where, aside from the 2007 update, new versions typically don't change that much stuff that people actually use.)

Maybe it was just that home users don't tend to upgrade Office in the first place so why bother with the upgrade SKUs. :)

This might indicate that ver 10 is right around the corner. It's about that time.

-edbro (August 19, 2010, 05:49 AM)

I don't think the deal is related to Opus 10. On the previous page someone said the same about a similar deal from the same people in January.

I love DirOpus and think it is worth the high price but, be warned that the upgrade costs are usually quite high also.

In the past, when new versions came out people who bought the old ones recently were given more discounted upgrades. People who bought really recently got upgraded for free. I can't speak for GPSoftware and say for sure what they'll do when Opus 10 is finally ready but they seem to understand it's good not to punish people for buying at the wrong time and good to reduce the amount of second-guessing people have to do about upgrade timing.

(With that in mind, in general the upgrade prices are not high when you consider how often you're asked to pay them, which is every 3-4 years for a substantial update (with lots of free, and sometimes substantial, ones in between). It's not one of those products where you get charged for a minor update every year like clockwork. :) What they give away free between version-changes is better than the updates many companies ask people to pay for.)

Of course, there are times when buying gets you more free updates than others but it you do buy when Opus 10 is imminent then you'll probably get a very discounted, or even free, update.