If you want to see how VMW have got it so horribly wrong check this out http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/07/23/100134488/
A couple of quotes to highlight the folly:
"Says Robert Hormats, a longtime China watcher at Goldman Sachs: "It's a great turnaround story with wonderful lessons for other companies.""
"pricing strategies were doomed to fail"
"And Microsoft's own prices have dropped so low it now sells a $3 package of Windows and Office to students"
The most important thing to take from this is that what is even more important than revenues is that people are using your product - not someone elses, as stated above by OPs! The revenues will come with with this strategy and a bit of patience but no, the unseemly haste to embed the snout into an a faster filling trough has blinded them to the lessons of history, bless their grubby little souls.
VMW = too many high powered (and probably over-paid) spin doctors who want even more but who don't have the common sense and restraint to go with it ;(
