Comet caught counterfeiting Windows (or was it Coke)

Every day, we can feel the power of Apple grow, while Microsoft looks increasingly like someone's dad dancing to dubstep. The latest legal action from Bill Gates' legacy has put one of its biggest customers in court. KitGuru watches re-runs of West Wing and prepares to get indignant.

Imagine being in a restaurant and deciding that Coca-Cola was the thing you needed to satisfy your thirst. Would you think it strange if the waiter asked, “Would you prefer a tin which has been poured into a glass, an unopened tin, a glass poured from the bottle or can we just use a hose and pour it directly into your mouth at the start of the meal and hope you don't get thirsty again?”

This is almost certainly the kind of legal challenge that Microsoft will be mounting.

Comet will have, in many cases, decided that pouring all the Coca-Cola into the customer's mouth at the start of the meal, was the most cost-effective solution (because Microsoft prices its OS that way).

Microsoft won't be saying that Comet was taking its hose of Coca-Cola and making its own tins or bottle for resale.

Instead it will say that Comet offering customers the chance to have a glass on the table, for the ‘free pour' Coca-Cola, just in case it was needed – amounts to creating tins for resale in shops.

Comet decided to give customers a disk which would reset the system back to the set-up the customer had when the machine arrived. Microsoft says that this amounts to stealing/copying and god knows what else it can sue for. Each customer bought one machine with one copy of Windows. No one seems to be saying that Comet was selling the same copy of the OS to more than one customer.

Back in the good old days of Windows 95, Microsoft had situations where system builders  would pre-install Windows (by copying a master drive) and then supply the certificate from another EU country, for example Portugal, where Microsoft had a completely different pricing strategy. No one really wanted to fight Linklaters (Microsoft's hired legal guns of the day) – so each copy was ‘bought' twice. It's this kind of love that Microsoft has generated over the years which means people seem to be choosing ‘not-Windows' in record numbers.

KitGuru says: If you ordered the Coca-Cola on tap and the waiter supplied a glass, would you expect to be raided by the police? Just in case you were not sure of the way Microsoft's disk printing works, it seems that you can buy glasses for customers – but only from Microsoft's glass supplying business in Germany.

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