Sterling Ball is Microsoft-free. Two years ago, the maker of Ernie Ball electric guitars and strings was slapped with a $90,000 fine by the Business Software Alliance for what the company says was unwitting use of eight unlicensed copies of Microsoft Office.
Microsoft then clipped a news story referring to Ernie Ball's run-in with the BSA, an industry association it co-founded, and attached it to a letter to area businesses warning they could face similar fines. The letter also pitched Microsoft software upgrades as a way to eliminate that risk. Ball paid the fine. Then he wiped Windows and Office off his firm's 80 personal computers and switched to "open-source code" software programs, which do much of what Microsoft's products do at a fraction of the cost.
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