Russian authorities originally charged school teacher, Alexander Ponosov, with installing pirated versions of Microsoft Office and Windows on PCs at the school where he taught. The case was thrown out of court after the court said Ponosov’s actions were “insignificant”. Posonov had claimed the PCs had come with the pirated software pre-installed by sub-contractors.

In a bizarre twist Ponosov has ended up being fined US$200 (about half a month’s salary or a crate of Stolichnaya) after he joined prosecutors who lodged an appeal after the first case was dropped. The appeal led to Ponosov’s retrial and subsequent guilty verdict and fine. Bet he wishes he’d kept quiet now. But no, he does plan to appeal again. Just keep on digging mate, keep on digging.

However the story sounds a bit fishy to us? How come there’s no reports of the authorities pursuing the ‘sub-contractors’ that Ponosov bought the PCs from? Also Russia is on an American ‘watch list’ regarding copyright protection, perhaps the Russian authorities think that Posonov’s conviction will satisfy the Americans? It just smacks of a political manoeuvre by Russia in its effort to join the World Trade Organisation. What do you think?

Source: CNN

We’ve all assisted Google launching the Premiere web applications package a few days ago. Some of us considered switching, some of us are still holding the grounds, but one thing is certain. There will be debates. Google is obviously trying to conquer Microsoft’s office suite market and they’re playing it rough. Let see a few reasons in favor or against the migration to the new service.

In favor:
* The price - Instead of paying ~$500 for the full Microsoft Office suite, you might as well pay $50/year to Google. I am not referring to the price per quality ratio right now. It’s strictly about the price. It’s cheaper, even on a long term basis.
* Remote accessibility - With Google, your documents will be accessible from almost everywhere. And you’ll see why I’m phrasing it like that a bit later. However, your data is accessible with every computer with an internet connection.
* Minimum computing power - Since everything is browser-based and you will not run any third-parties on your own machine, the computing power is reduced significantly, transforming even those old computers into something useful.

I am not going to discuss the so-called security advantages, since it’s all relative, but I am going to mention the fact that with Google office apps, you will get rid of those updating procedures you got used to with Microsoft, you won’t have to worry about license restrictions, and you won’t have to spend time and resources installing the suite when you feel like adding a few computers to the network.
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If you’re living in the United States, we have some good news for you. Microsoft will simply give out trial licenses for Windows Vista, and free copies of the 2007 Microsoft Office Professional System and the 2007 Microsoft Office Groove for the Launch Events 2007.

The Launch Events 2007 are special events organized by the Redmond company, in which Microsoft Office 2007, Windows Vista and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 will be launched in the US, in 74 different palces.

“Offer good only to registered attendees of the event on the date they attend, while supplies last. This offer is nontransferable. Limit one item each per attendee. Taxes, if any, are the sole responsibility of the recipient. The free software will be distributed as a downloadable file. To download the software, an access code will be required. The access code must be claimed onsite at event.”

The trial licenses I’m talking about will be available in the following 15 cities of the US: NewYork, Phoenix, Tampa, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington DC, Minneapolis, Chicago, Atlanta, Detroit, Houston, Philadelphia, Dallas and Seattle. The copies of Office Professional and Groove 2007 will be available on all of the locations. These free copies are not affected in any way by no trial sequence. They’re full versions offered to those who will participate to the Launch Events.

If you wish to have higher chances of getting your hands on one of the copies, sign up in the events.