This letter should be more articulate, but it's not. I'm frustrated. I'm upset. I pay for your software, purchase your software, but then when I try to install it, to use the software that I've paid for, I'm forced to deal with cumbersome license keys, registration keys, security key, and validation keys.
For example. The company that I work for purchased Symantec Ghost, and enough licenses for our entire organization. This is not inexpensive. After installing the software, generating a registration key, emailing the registration key to Symantec, waiting for there response with my authorization key, and entering the registration key I was able to use their (our) software. It's now maybe 2 to 4 years later, and I'm trying to reinstall this software (the software that we've purchased) and I can't because I can't get the license key to work, even after repeating the above steps. So, I call Symantec's technical support, only they can't help me because this software is not serviced anymore. So, I'm not able to use this software (which we've paid for) all because Symantec is trying to prevent piracy. And, while I sympathize with the fact that they do not want to lose money to theft, I hope they understand that they have lost my money, as I will not purchase software from Symantec again. Unfortunately, Symantec is not the only software publisher with these business practices. It's more the norm than the exception.
In conclusion, this note is written mostly for me, to vent my frustration, and with small (very small) hopes that this may get through to Symantec and other software publishers who engage in similar business practices. And maybe, just maybe, they'll decide not to punish their customers, in an attempt to stop theft.
Feel free to discuss your experiences in the comments section.
Thanks for reading.
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Coincidentally, Kalanna and I were talking about this same issue just yesterday -- she wanted to know if she would be able to install her cooking software two computers with a network-shared data file. She wants to install on both our desktop and notebook computers -- the desktop, because it's more comfortable to sit there and enter recipe data... and the notebook, because she could set that up on the counter in the kitchen when she needs to consult the recipes. Well, I haven't had a chance to see if it is technically possible -- but, legally, according to the software license, you are only allowed to install the software on one machine.
I was thinking about how, not so long ago, most people would have thought that it was an absolute luxury to have more than one television set in a house. But, when the price and size of TVs came down, that became commonplace. Similarly, it's becoming increasingly common to have more than one computer in a house. Software companies have to start to recognize this and provide a means to install on multiple (or new) machines -- they have to face it, because if the competition figures it out first, they're going to lose a lot of business.
It's interesting that there is a big movement in the on-line music industry to push the ability to purchase songs that don't have any DRM -- that is, without copy protection, so you can copy your legally purchased songs to all the devices you own. We can only hope that this same "DRM-Free" movement works its way to other areas of computing as well.
In truth, we're quickly approaching "cloud" computing, and I have been pushing to get all of my stuff running online (Google Apps, etc.) Multiple computers -- in my home, and at work -- is making this essential. I tried to encourage Kalanna to find a recipe solution that ran completely on-line, but she says there just isn't anything appropriate. (Looking for an Internet start-up idea? Come up with a Goodreads or Flixter style app for recipes!)
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