Personally I think this is the real reason behind the push for secure boot.

If users can easily disable Secure Boot, it won't prevent much piracy at all.

Isn't it a completely optional feature? Otherwise, Windows 8 would not work on any pre-Secure Boot PCs.

The article states that "According to Microsoft’s presentation at //BUILD/2011, Secure Boot will be “Required for Windows 8 client”"

For machines that adhere to the Windows 8 logo program. Windows 8 itself will still boot on BIOS, let alone UEFI systems without secure boot.

Without piracy, nobody (approximately) in the Third World will use Windows or, by extension, any Microsoft software. Microsoft knows this. I doubt Microsoft wants to stop piracy that badly.

I suspect that only name brand PCs will use secure boot; people in developing regions mostly buy whitebox PCs and thus can easily avoid it.