POOR NATIONS & SOFTWARE PIRACY

BSA Software Piracy report of May 2007 reveals that out of US $100 Billion software installed last year (2006), only US$65 Billion is paid for and the balance is pirated. The rate of software piracy worldwide is estimated to be 35%. As per the report, Countries which indulge in high piracy are Armenia, Moldova, Pakistan, Vietnam Venezuela, Indonesia, Algeria etc (Almost to the tune of (90%) whereas the least of software piracy is observed in US, New Zeeland, Japan, Denmark Austria &a Switzerland. The report had highlighted the efforts by China and Russia to reduce software piracy. In china over the last 3 years, the piracy had come down by 10% and in Russia, by 7% in the same period. The finding also states that in spite of high growth of PC shipment in Asian, African and Latin American & Eastern European countries which amounts one third of total shipment, the software spending in these nations amounts to only 10% of the total software sold worldwide and the report perceives it as a major loss. India which is rated moderate and above in software piracy has brought down the piracy by 1% last year. A combination of awareness creation and rule of the law is applied in India to keep the piracy under check.

This is only one side of the story. There is also another side to it, the user side. All these software companies are pricing their products atrociously. Look at the price of a single user MS Office, it is around Rs.14,000/-. That of Pagemaker is Rs.30,000/-, Autocad, Rs.90,000/- and Photoshop, Rs.60,000/-, Corel Draw, Rs. 23000/-. None of these pricing is done based on cost of development or market competition. These are typically value based, monopolistic pricing. For, there is hardly any competition for MS office, Autocad, Photoshop, Pagemaker or Corel Draw etc making the respective developers charge the customers a very high price for each of these. Even multi-user license hardly brings down the prices. True, it is a sellers market out there. No wonder all these software giants have billions of dollars as cash surplus in hand.

How would users in poor countries react to such pricing? They simply indulge in piracy. Copy the software rampantly and use it without paying. Monopolistic pricing and piracy, both are bad. There must be some balance. I very earnestly believe that utility software prices must come down drastically, by more than 300 to 400 %. Sure, such pricing will not eradicate software piracy altogether but will reduce it considerably.

Another way is to encourage the free software movement, which is already in existence. We see some effects there. Software such as Linux, Star office, Netscape are available freely (mostly) or at extremely low prices. Users all over the world should take conscious decision to support this cause. But unfortunately, it does not happen that way. All these software giants indulge in aggressive marketing strategies, advertisement campaigns and massive loyalty programs, enticing the users in to them, thereby defeating any genuine movement such as above. They also use muscle power, such as denying opportunities to defiant hardware companies and consultants to use their software. Recent indictment by European Union Court on Microsoft Corpn is a proof of that.

Money power and muscle power. Many good causes get crushed because of it. And therein lies the agony.