>>I thought that might come up, but then I said to myself 'Mike wouldn't bring up something that's really irrelevant to the issue'. I was wrong, and it is irrelevant.
>
>Actually, its very relevant. If you loose enough of your revenues to piracy than you can't continue to offer the highest quaility of products and then your business turns to $3.50. Then you hurt, and the customers that relied on your products hurt.
>
>If I'm wrong, let me know.
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Ok, you're wrong. $30 Billion in the bank says that they aren't being hurt has much as they claim they are. Piracy in the USA is not wide spread or common. I have yet to see a single pirated copy of WinXX on any machine I've seen.

As far as folks in other countries being pirates... If you check the world income demographics you find that most people in 3rd world countries could not afford to buy W2K, so Microsoft isn't 'losing' income from sales to them.
A W2K server license costs more than most 3rd Worlders make in a year. What MS is hoping to do is get their software into 3rd world corporate and gov offices, but that isn't that great a market compared to 1st world corporate and personal PC purchases. The USA economy is equal to half of the all the other countries economies combined. Micrsoft has saturated the PC market in the US and is now fighting a battle against loosing market share to Linux. To aid in that battle Gates is marshalling political forces (the DMCA and their newer EULAa) and social forces (GPL is communistic!) and legal forces (a compliant Patent and copyright office) to paper off access rights (you can't use the FOR..NEXT algorithm, it is our IP) or heighten existing barriers (cross licensing requirements - no portfolio, no entry) to entry.

You betcha some folks are mad.