Why the illegal market determines the success of your software
In my original article I stated that "When you take your product and enforce a price on it (by making it nigh-impossible to hack) then you need to be VERY confident that the world will be happy buying it." and that still remains true. XP was a massive hit but not just because it was a big step beyond 2000/ME/98se; it was easily hackable too. This meant that not only did businesses buy into it, regular users did too but so did hundreds of thousands (millions even) of advanced users because they didn't have to pay.
Vista however was marketed as being harder, better, faster, stronger and more importantly - nigh uncrackable. Which proved a problem because it made uptake noticably slower than that for XP. However, things might have changed now because some awfully clever people managed to crack Vista (apparently). This might have caused a shift in demographics because users are now potentially able to sample the "delights" of Vista without paying massively inflated prices.
The important illegal market
It may seem like a completely odd statement but the illegal market is an important one; a key value in the formula of succesful software. You need strong support from the "average Joe" who will pick up your box in PCWorld under the assumption it does everything he needs. You also need strong support from "bundles", where your software is bundled in with a pre-installed Operating System (like when you get a notebook from Packard Bell with loads of random apps that you don't want). You also need (for overwhelming success) a good amount of support from the illegal market. These are the people who will determine your reviews.
We are the people who write your reviews, live on your forums and benchmark your apps - the illegal market is a powerful one
Illegal users are advanced users (on the most part) and they're the very same who write reviews about it, blog it, benchmark it and therefore determine the non-marketing side of your product's online presence. They help create the reputation from which your product is sold and that's an important consideration. If it can't be hacked then very-few people on the Internet want to know about it.
XP had so many online users because it WAS crackable. Vista's online presence was largely FUD and people complaining about pricing. Maybe if it was hackable, crackable (and enjoyable) then maybe it's online representation would have been slightly better. Having hackable software isn't a bad thing - advanced users will buy it if they like it enough and you've still got all the revenue of "normal" people. Dedicated pirates won't use your product if it's not free and they're the very same people who could be helping others on your forums or blogging about the greatness of your software. Ease of piracy makes a product in my opinion - it certainly did for XP.
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