News Asian pirates in Microsoft 'coup'

Arrrgh, Me 'arties - it be a tale of high piracy on the South China Seas and the Straights of Malaka. This from the Beeb:

Pirated versions of Microsoft's next generation computer operating system are on sale in Malaysia, more than a year before the official release date.

Copies of the software, codenamed Longhorn, have been found in the southern Malaysian city of Johor Baru costing less than $2.

Software industry sources told the BBC it was the piracy coup of the decade.

The new program, which is due to supersede Windows XP, is not expected to be officially released until 2005.

Malaysian pirates are among the world's most audacious. Major Hollywood movies can regularly be found on sale here in disc form long before their international premieres.

But this is possibly the pirates' boldest move to date.

Full story here

[CaptainFlint]
Ark! Pieces of Code, Pieces of Code!
[/CaptainFlint]

 

Pfft they just download it of the Internet like everybody else "in the know"

 

i really dont see why anyone would care about distributing that... thing, other than for the reason that it's a $2 copy of xp pro. cuz thats all it seemed to me to be, winxp pro, with a really dumb unstable program-bar-thingy. i can't even see microsoft being too upset by it, since it probably doesn't give even a glimpse of what longhorn will be.

 

Are they selling it as a weapon ?