Microsoft inflating the value of its antipiracy efforts?

Never mind that Microsoft probably derives far more benefit from piracy than it loses in the bargain, Microsoft is now trumpeting that it has recovered $900 million in pirated and counterfeit copies of its software. Hurray! Now maybe those people will use a Mac or Linux. :-)

Let's be honest. That is one of the primary reasons Windows continues to flourish: because of the piracy in developing nations that lays the foundation for Microsoft to sell into. It's a bastardized version of the dual-license open-source model.

Still, Microsoft is almost certainly heavily inflating the numbers on how much the recovered software is worth, as one of the comments to CNET's article suggests. Regardless of the real amount, Microsoft could learn a few lessons about piracy from Tim O'Reilly.

Or maybe it already has, but just doesn't want to admit it.