I never took Steve Ballmer for an idealist. I was wrong. In fact, he proved me wrong when he stated that Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office System will reduce piracy. Microsoft's CEO believes that the company's Genuine Advantage initiative, made an integer part of both Vista and Office 2007, will deliver a heavy impact on the counterfeiting associated with the two products and will lower the piracy rate.

Microsoft estimates that in excess of 20% of the company's software deployed worldwide is pirated. Ballmer believes that the authentication programs introduced into Vista and Office 2007 will slice that figure.

In the meantime, pirated copies of both Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office System are flooding the peer-to-peer networks. And where is Microsoft's Genuine Advantage in all this? Cracked, hacked and otherwise not making an impact at all. "We're trying to make it easier for people who somehow have received improperly licensed versions to get legal, and we also put more roadblocks in," said Ballmer. However, Microsoft's CEO failed to put a figure on a lowered piracy rate. He only commented that "It will help."

Microsoft reported $10.8 billion in total revenue the past quarter. Out of that, over $3.3 billion were brought in by the Windows desktop sales. This sum will be substantially bigger once Microsoft will decide to take an active stand on the issue of product piracy. The Genuine Advantage is a solution that works on paper, but not in the real world where it is simply yet another anti-piracy tool that failed.