Piracy won't go in a hurry

By 2009, software piracy rates will fall to 64 per cent. This implies a 10 per cent drop from the figure of 74 per cent in 2004, notes the Business Software Alliance (BSA) India committee "� an industry enforcement body. Are the figures good enough?

Ajay Advani, co-chair of the committee, says: "Companies in non-metro cities like Ahmedabad, Pune, Nagpur "� also described as tier B cities "� are increasingly using legal software." However, he admits the drop of two per cent from the 2005 figures of 72 per cent "is insignificant". BSA is in talks with the government to introduce software patents in India.

Vijay Mukhi, president, Foundation of Information Security and Technology (FIST), cautions: "Prospective international customers do not want to buy from Indian companies who are using pirated software."

Globally, software piracy is a $34 billion industry with 35 per cent of the software being pirated. In the Asia-Pacific region, the figure totals $8,050 million while it amounts to $566 million in India alone, according to Microsoft. In 2006, BSA conducted over 40 raids and issued over 1,200 letters to corporates who were using pirated software.

However, raids and the subsequent shutdowns of corporates can backfire. Raghu Raman, CEO, Mahindra Special Services Group notes that open source adoption is increasing in the country and such action would only further such a move.

Software vendors also need to reduce the cost per deployment or look at packaging their software along with services to reduce piracy. For instance, SAP's business model of software packaged with services or commonly known as Software As A Service (SaaS) leaves little scope for piracy. Anti-virus solution providers like Symantec and Trend Micro earlier this year made a strategic move towards adopting SaaS at all levels from enterprise to home users. IDC predicts SaaS will make up 30 per cent of the software market by 2007.

Brian Campbell, Director, Genuine Software Initiative, Microsoft India, says: "The key to customer satisfaction is making the right product available at the right price."