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Not data science, but wouldn’t it be better to have the retailer control the certificates and give them to the consumer at the time of purchase? In many cases the retailer is also the software company (ie Apple selling Macs or Microsoft Surfaces), and even when it’s not, presumably it’s easier to catch this activity at the point of sale than at the factory?

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Hi Marcos,

Thanks for your question.

In this specific instance it wasn't that simple. Hardware was being built by many different companies/brands in factories all over the world and each of the brands had their own unique retail channels which were very different by brand/country. No matter the hardware brand (or the retail channel that was used around the world) the hardware was expected to have the software already installed and activated but the software company didn't want their software to be pirated and that was the main problem for them. Also note this was a long time ago. When reliable and robust internet access wasn't a given in many countries in the world as it is today. The main point for this post was mainly to show how sometimes simple statistical tests can solve huge business problems :)

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