 13 - 19 December 2000 |
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Piracy in region costs Microsoft Lm40 million a year Dubai-based Microsoft GEM, which covers 18 countries ranging from (and including) Malta and Cyprus to Pakistan and Afghanistan, announced this week that computer software piracy in the region under its jurisdiction currently costs industry heavyweight Microsoft some Lm40 million a year. Such losses are apparent despite the fact that piracy has reportedly declined in some parts of the region, a senior company official said on Monday. "Software piracy is costing the company yearly about $100 million in the Middle East and $12 billion world-wide," Bahram Mohazzebi, Microsoft's general manager for the Gulf and Eastern Mediterranean, explained. He said the level of piracy was declining in some regional states, including the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Lebanon. "The piracy rate in the UAE dropped in the last four years from the high nineties to the low forties," he said. US-based Business Software Alliance (BSA) estimated this year that total industry losses from piracy in the Middle East in 1999 increased by 78 per cent to some Lm100 million. Despite progress in the region, it said there was still much work to be done, with illegal software making up as much as 80 per cent of total sales in Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, and Kuwait. BSA groups firms such as Microsoft, Novell Inc and Lotus, part of International Business Machines Corp. BSA said the piracy rate in the Middle East fell to 63 percent in 1999 from 69 percent in 1998. Gulf Arab states showed a decline in piracy because of new copyright laws and stricter enforcement, it said. "Usually when a copyright law is passed it will take some time for implementation to move forward...it's quite difficult to manage that progress but in general I can tell you, yes, there has been an improvement,'' Mr Mohazzebi said. Mr Mohazzebi added that the company did not do business with Iran and Iraq because of trade embargoes on those countries. "This year so far we have about 40 percent growth in the region compared with the same period last year because our fiscal year starts in July," he added, without giving sales figures. | ||||||
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