Journal #6, October 5, 2008

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/151816/bad_things_happen_to_unlicensed_windows_users.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Windows (Extra Research)

Most likely everyone that owns a computer in America uses some sort of Windows program, well when we are using those programs ourselves they are mostly likely a licensed Windows program. There are Windows programs that are unlicensed that some companies rely on so they do not have to pay to use it. Well the Microsoft Corp. said that those unlicensed programs are more likely to experience system failures and lose certain type of data. According to the research done by the Microsoft Corp. they report that 43% of those that use the unlicensed one had a critical failure lasting more then 24 hours. Those companies were also 28% more likely to lose customers data and 73% more likely to lose their data. Also in their research they calculated that 56% of 1,600 companies are using the unlicensed Windows and that is a big risk for those companies to take. Whoever is sneaking the unlicensed can also be sneaking the risk for those companies, so Microsoft Corp. is saying that you are getting what they desire. But they are awaring companies about this risk to make the companies think before getting the unlicensed Windows. I think that Microsoft is doing a good job in awaring these companies about the risk. It is beneficial to them, because the companies now would buy the product instead of trying to be cheap and take a risk in downloading the unlicensed version. I know a couple people that have the unlicensed version so I do not know if they are risk of the same thing since they do not have a company. If it was me that owned a company and I was at risk I would go head and buy it legal and pay for it that way, then downloading it and paying for it buy losing important data. So this can have a very big impact to society according what companies have what.