Summary: "Genuine Advantage" getting the kick explained by bloggers

The title is ambiguous as it may refer either to cracking one's registration process or the spreading of crack, the banned drug. Actually, the title can be either one of these things. As we explained earlier, Microsoft's "Genuine Advantage" withdrawal is sign that dead products from the giant take their toll and expand to basic territories. Some products that are close to Office are among the casualties. Matt Hartley explains why stepping away from "Genuine Advantage" makes sense for Microsoft:

It was fun while it lasted. According to at least one report, Microsoft has shut down Office Genuine Advantage (OGA). And I hate to say it, but no one is going to be missing this any time soon. I’m sorry, but there was absolutely NO advantage with Genuine Advantage. It was a horrid thing to subject paying customers to and it is long overdue for a toilet based funeral in my opinion. Glad to see Microsoft stepped up to put it out of our misery.

OpenBytes goes further by tackling this conundrum with a memorable quote:

As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.

Source: Bill Gates

There have been numerous articles around the net that Microsoft has killed off OGA (or in Microsoft’s words “retired”).

Microsoft “retiring” OGA should, for once, be a good news story from Redmond.

Or should it?

There is no doubt to me in the obvious surge of popularity for FOSS or even proprietary alternatives to Microsoft products. Its been said that the two main cash-cows Microsoft has remaining (in lieu of its patent portfolio and a predicted more aggressive patent attack) are Office and Windows. We see products like OpenOffice taking users away from that cash cow, LibreOffice, AbiWord, Google Docs are but a few that are taking a bite out of Microsoft’s cash pie.

Could the OGA retirement be an attempt to achieve that which Bill Gates envisioned those years ago, where it appears Microsoft was quite happy for people to pirate their products in order for this “addiction” to take place? Afterall, why should the majority of users spend money on Microsoft Office, when there are free alternatives?

The challenge now is ensuring that Bill Gates is pushed away from school children (which he is taking over using the Gates Foundation) so that they don't get "addicted" (Gates' word) to Microsoft Office and other forms of lock-in. ⬆