Microsoft wins out against pirates
The dealers, based in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria and a number of smaller regional locations, were found to be selling computers loaded with unlicensed Microsoft software. Settlements worth hundreds of thousands of rands were reached.
A recent study by the International Data Corporation (IDC) has found that the piracy rate in SA in 2006 was 35%.
The software industry is a significant economic driver and the study showed spending on hardware, software and IT services in SA was expected to have reached R61bn last year. The IT industry employs more than 355000 people and for every R1 that Microsoft earned last year, partners working with Microsoft would have earned R9,69.
However, software piracy was threatening the industry. The study reported that piracy of business applications in SA cost commercial software publishers R1,12bn in 2006.
Microsoft SA partner executive Mark Reynolds said the settlements were made between November and last month, and other investigations were ongoing. He said piracy rates in the UK and US were relatively low at about 20% and were very high in China at 95%. Rates were also typically high in African and Middle Eastern countries.
“Piracy remains one of the major hurdles to realising the potential of the information economy in SA and on the continent. There is great concern for our local economy that over a third of software in use is illegal,” said Business Alliance Software in SA chairman Alastair de Wet.
Reynolds warned consumers to be sure that new computers they bought were not loaded with pirated software.
“Illegally loaded software is not upgradeable, users will not receive support and there is always a threat of a virus wiping out their computer’s hard drive,” he said.
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