MS Open Value to combat piracy

With an aim to ease the pressure on consumer while buying costly software,
global software major Microsoft has introduced a

deferred licensing program 'Open Value' covering all its products for small and
mid-market customers.

This program is also likely to provide a much-needed boost in order to thwart
software piracy activity within the Indian region as well. This licensing
program enables a customer to pay for any Microsoft product they purchase over a
period of three years.

"India is a big market for us and we want to make it easier for our
consumers to purchase software. This is a significant change in our license
policy in this region to make our software affordable and accessible. The
licensing will cover small and mid-market products and hence it will help us to
counter piracy," said, Neelam Dhawan, MD, Microsoft India.

NEELAM DHAwAN Introducing liberal licensing policies to make people buy original software

According to industry estimates, more than 73% of Microsoft's software
deployed in India is pirated, so introducing liberal licensing policies such as
this would certainly push people buy the original copies of software. "This
licensing program is our way to make buying of software an easy experience for
our customers in the small and mid-market segments. Through this licensing
program we are trying to reduce the piracy levels and encourage the consumers as
well as the reseller community to go for the original versions," informed,
Rajeev Mittal, Group Director, Small and Medium Solutions and Partners,
Microsoft.

Piracy won't pay much, this is the message being given my Microsoft, as the
company has recently engaged itself in an aggressive manner to counter high
rates of piracy within the reseller community itself. The company has taken
notice of many resellers in cities like New Delhi and even Chandigarh for
allegedly engaging in unauthorized hard disk loading of software onto computers.

As prevalent in many parts of country there are many resellers and VARs that
have been engaged in uploading unlicensed software onto hard drives, and/or sold
counterfeit software without providing each individual customer with the proper
license, media, or accompanying manual or documentation.

According to market sources close to Chandigarh channel community, as many as
eight resellers have been issued fine of upto Rs 1 lakh after pirated Microsoft
software was found. With Microsoft finetuning its agressiveness to combat piracy
- organisations like BSA and Nasscomm are confidant of curbing piracy rates in
India.

DQC NEWS BUREAU