Igor Kovalenko wrote:
“Armin Steinhoff” <a-steinhoff@web_.de> wrote in message
news:3C51B33A.A230290A@web_.de…
[…]
If a service person isn’t able to speak or read english …why should he
be able to handle the hardware in a professional way???
I might be unrealistic for you Armin, but don’t judge others with your own
ruler. We DO have customers on remote pasific islands. And no, they do not
speak english very well. And yes, we been spending DAYS on the phone with
them occasionally (many times using translators), trying to figure problems,
even those created by themselves. We fly there occasionally too, if we have
to. You don’t choose customers by their professionalism Armin. Customers
choose you by your professionalism.
Hmm… it’s always amazing that such customers prefer to spend money for
endless support and flights instead of hiring at least one guy with a
little bit more qualification.
Igor, our customers who have such personnal conditions have normally a
complete computer as spare part, and exchange is easier at least. Yes,
but it’s only possible for “small” computers… 
In your case I agree with you that a copy protection in the way you told
is not acceptable. But you can’t compare an OEM like MOT with the rest
of the world and be sure that licenses are not handled in all companies
as done in your company.
You know that we have much experience in industry since years and that
we know about even big plants which are running with illegal software
from us!
Just a very special case from the last year:
A developer of a big company wanted not only to copy the software,
he tried to copy also the design of the hardware interface used by
the software. A nice idea to build a compatible board which allows
to use commercial of the shelf software which was bought one time.
That was the first case for us that anyone was going not only to copy
the software. If the hardware manufacturer wouldn’t have had by chance
minor changes in the standard design or if the software had been w/o
copy protection, be sure nobody had got to know about that piracy…
Just Friday we got to know of a similar case (trial …
May be it’s a new culture in industry?? Quite new experiences for
hardware manufacturers at least. It’s really amazing!
“Normal” usage of illegal software from us - I can tell you only
about what we got to know - is separately sold software (licenses)
w/o copy protection and then used in qties.
BTW, we got to know 7 years ago about the first illegal copies from us.
They were sold to a big company. By chance was requested support from
3(!) continents for one and the same license. We never thought before
that it happens in industry in that way…
[…]
And no, it was not our intention to pirate their software, as your sarcasm
appears to infer.
Igor, that’s a complete misunderstanding… Armin was NOT referring to
Motorola and you should know better that we have no reason to distrust
them… it was meant as general statement!
[…] Think whatever you want, but I say screw
hardware-tied software.
No, I don’t agree in general!
If so, Rockwell and many other companies couldn’t sell software…
Your statement is a typical hardware manufacturer argument. They hide
own software costs in the price of the hardware and try to sell as much
of their hardware/software packages which are perceived as hardware only
with software as add-on.
A software vendor has to decide between customers, their applications,
usage etc. when doing contracts for protected or unproteted software
products or buyouts. OEMs get normally other conditions than customers
who buy a few single licenses. Conditions can also be very dependent of
the product.
Also, even when you can’t imagine, in some cases I prefer to make
NO busisiness because of it’s the “better business”… !
Just to avoid misunderstandings, it’s not referred to your special case
you have described…
Cheers,
Jutta
