Resolve and Fortitude : Microsoft's ''SECRET POWER BROKER'' breaks his silence by Joachim Kempin Page B
Authors: Joachim Kempin
Ads: Link
force recommended the implementation of a proven concept used by the entertainment industry requiring duplicators to obtain a license from us. Our immediate concern was solving the mechanics of such a supply chain. Thousands of companies throughout the world reproduced our products. How would we select and license the right ones?
Grant Duers, the team leader and an experienced logistic expert, pointed out that reducing the numbers of replicators would lead to larger production runs and lower repro costs. He had my ear. Investigating how costly these inserts actually were, he discovered every so often that they exceeded royalties paid to us. Our customers were being creamed! (In a footnote to our fact-finding mission, we enlisted the product groups to reduce documentation page counts.) This convinced me that if our moral intent would not find customers’ approval, cost savings for sure would! Intending to close loopholes and increase our ability to control the flow of goods, we asked our attorneys to include auditing rights and report requirements in our envisioned replicator licenses. We then made it mandatory to put an MS designed label, containing an encrypted serial number, on all packages.
Implementing the new procedures enabled us to compare replicators’ unit reports with the ones OEMs submitted. It took no time before large discrepancies were discovered. Lag time between the reports often caused this and was easily straightened out. Deviations had other reasons: every so often, OEMs served the black market without paying us or reported fewer machines than they were actually selling! Sufficiently large deviations warranted pronto follow-up, and an audit via an independent accounting organization was typically the result. It required my approval. Ironically, most caught did not deliberately cheat. They had grown so fast that their data processing and internal-reporting capabilities lacked accuracy. My controller therefore made it her task to educate customers on proper data capturing and reporting methods. To her delight, collecting the proper amount of royalties due was, from then on, much more easily achieved.
Other MS groups watched anxiously if the new measures made a difference, and they followed as soon as our lead showed progress. Aligning all sales groups and improving the safety system occupied our logistics group for decades. Next we established a network for issuing security numbers electronically, directly to the printing press. When installing our software, we demanded that end users type in the sixteen digits found on our security label. Still not adequate! The pirates soon cracked our algorithm. In turn, we made the math harder for them. The next logical step was to use a WW computer network, which could validate every single number from a central place denying multiple uses to cheaters. With the appearance of the Internet, that got solved as well. Not all holes were ever plugged sufficiently, leaving room for substantial leaks.
Internally, my colleagues labeled me the antipiracy czar. In the press I was described as MS’s enforcer. None of these monikers offended me one bit. Successfully discouraging the thieving backdoor artistes was all that counted. As long as I ran OEM, I continued advancing these means with passion. Eventually, our products would be delivered on CDs or DVDs. We worked with one supplier, printing unduplicable (or so we thought) blanks with holographic images and distributed them to other replicators for final production. They gave our products a distinct and artistic look and again increased our security incrementally. The pirates countered with a design mimicking ours. In a fascinating game of global cat and mouse, we indeed won over time after several incarnations of hologram technology. The last task was to create piracy-proof sticky labels. They were not only hard to replicate but also nearly impossible to remove without damaging the carrier. Applying banknote printing
Grant Duers, the team leader and an experienced logistic expert, pointed out that reducing the numbers of replicators would lead to larger production runs and lower repro costs. He had my ear. Investigating how costly these inserts actually were, he discovered every so often that they exceeded royalties paid to us. Our customers were being creamed! (In a footnote to our fact-finding mission, we enlisted the product groups to reduce documentation page counts.) This convinced me that if our moral intent would not find customers’ approval, cost savings for sure would! Intending to close loopholes and increase our ability to control the flow of goods, we asked our attorneys to include auditing rights and report requirements in our envisioned replicator licenses. We then made it mandatory to put an MS designed label, containing an encrypted serial number, on all packages.
Implementing the new procedures enabled us to compare replicators’ unit reports with the ones OEMs submitted. It took no time before large discrepancies were discovered. Lag time between the reports often caused this and was easily straightened out. Deviations had other reasons: every so often, OEMs served the black market without paying us or reported fewer machines than they were actually selling! Sufficiently large deviations warranted pronto follow-up, and an audit via an independent accounting organization was typically the result. It required my approval. Ironically, most caught did not deliberately cheat. They had grown so fast that their data processing and internal-reporting capabilities lacked accuracy. My controller therefore made it her task to educate customers on proper data capturing and reporting methods. To her delight, collecting the proper amount of royalties due was, from then on, much more easily achieved.
Other MS groups watched anxiously if the new measures made a difference, and they followed as soon as our lead showed progress. Aligning all sales groups and improving the safety system occupied our logistics group for decades. Next we established a network for issuing security numbers electronically, directly to the printing press. When installing our software, we demanded that end users type in the sixteen digits found on our security label. Still not adequate! The pirates soon cracked our algorithm. In turn, we made the math harder for them. The next logical step was to use a WW computer network, which could validate every single number from a central place denying multiple uses to cheaters. With the appearance of the Internet, that got solved as well. Not all holes were ever plugged sufficiently, leaving room for substantial leaks.
Internally, my colleagues labeled me the antipiracy czar. In the press I was described as MS’s enforcer. None of these monikers offended me one bit. Successfully discouraging the thieving backdoor artistes was all that counted. As long as I ran OEM, I continued advancing these means with passion. Eventually, our products would be delivered on CDs or DVDs. We worked with one supplier, printing unduplicable (or so we thought) blanks with holographic images and distributed them to other replicators for final production. They gave our products a distinct and artistic look and again increased our security incrementally. The pirates countered with a design mimicking ours. In a fascinating game of global cat and mouse, we indeed won over time after several incarnations of hologram technology. The last task was to create piracy-proof sticky labels. They were not only hard to replicate but also nearly impossible to remove without damaging the carrier. Applying banknote printing
Similar Books
