Interview with EA CEO

[Thecla]

An interesting interview with Electronic Arts CEO, Larry Probst.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...L&type=business

One thing that struck me is this:

The issue of piracy has existed in Asia for a long time, and I don't think it's going away anytime soon. So what we expect to happen in those markets is that the business will evolve around an online model where you can register and authenticate the person on the other end, more of a server-client model.

Free online services may have some economic advantages going for them. Privacy issues might be another thing.

[Taem]

I read in the newspaper about a new emerging company, previously an emerging .dot com, that will turn out to be, as reported by the LAtimes, the next generation Microsoft. What does this company (that I can't remember its name) do? Keeps track of individual personal information and authentication processes. If found that very interesting, yet failed to find any links to articles at the time of this posting.

I doubt Microsoft will allow someone else to take over their bread and butter. If all software goes online with an authentication process, you can bet Microsoft will be the first in line to have their hands out.

[Kevin]

Microsoft has been slowly pushing the online authentication process for years. They have openly stated that they want to go that route many times. This is something they have been pursuing, it isn't something that will be a reaction to anyone else. Maybe you didn't note all the stink about XP no longer working on laptops because people swapped media bays and PCMCIA cards around and then they boot up to a screen that says you need to reauthenticate. Happenned to a reporter while on a plane once. The stink about it caused many of their measures to be reduced, but MS has been on this path for a long time. As soon as they started thier late push on internet technology they started to plan to go this route in fact.

[AtomicKitKat]

Narssicistic Troublemakers.