Microsoft to continue anti-piracy drive, CONFED to support it

NR Sethuraman

Chennai

March 26th, 2008

At a meeting between CONFED-ITA, the general association working for the
welfare of IT channel in Tamil Nadu, and Microsoft's legal team, the latter
maintained that it would continue its activities to curb the piracy. And the
association decided to support the vendor in this endeavor.

The meeting was held at Coimbatore on 24th March, 2008 and over 14 Tamil Nadu
associations were represented through CONFED-ITA. This was the third round of
meeting between Microsoft and CONFED-ITA since the former started conducting
raids and imposed fines on partners to control piracy in the state. It was after
the involvement of CONFED-ITA that Microsoft suspended its anti-piracy
activities.

At the latest meeting Microsoft clearly stated that it would no longer
tolerate the piracy activities happening in the state. S Karthikeyan, President,
CONFED-ITA, said, "Microsoft also claimed that it is not bothered even if
its sales come down due to anti-piracy actions undertaken by it."

However the association put forward some of its own opinions to ensure smooth
software sales in the state. "Normally there is structure that vendors
employ to work through the channel. It has a distributor and sub-distributor who
then closely work with partners for moving its products. But this is very much
missing in Microsoft," Karthikeyan claimed

He also felt that it is the duty of a vendor to hand hold the channel and
keep them posted on the various developments happening within the company.
Echoing his opinion PN Prasad, VP, CONFED-ITA said, "The channel cannot act
as sales people for Microsoft and it is the responsibility of every vendor to
make customers aware of its products. Without the support from vendors it is
impossible for a dealer to educate customers about piracy related issues."
He also claimed that end users are the sole reason for piracy and no channel
partner is interested in encouraging the piracy.

S Prakash, Secretary of CONFED-ITA completely agreed with these views.
"Partners cannot be held responsible for the activities of end users, who
are the major reason for pirated software business. All our partners are ready
to support Microsoft, however there is no response from them," he averred.

He also claimed that Microsoft had agreed to all the requests of CONFED even
in their last meeting at Madurai, however they were yet to implement anything
till date. "Till date they haven't appointed a sub distributor in Tamil
Nadu, which they agreed to do during the last meeting few months back. They have
been agreeing to all of our requests and no implementations have happened,"
Prakash claimed.

Another major claim put forward by the channel partners is the difference in
price of the software. "There is a 15 percent difference in the price of
Microsoft products offered by a dealer in Chennai and Coimbatore. This is why
upcountry channel is unable to cope up with that difference and ends up losing
business to partners in Chennai," said Karthikeyan.

Echoing the same S Prakash, Secretary, CONFED-ITA said, "A 2-3 percent
difference could be tolerated, but we don't see any reasons for a difference of
15 percent between the upcountry region and metro cities."

Even though Microsoft has agreed to all the claims of CONFED-ITA and has
proposed to solve those things, it is said to restart its piracy survey again
across the state from April. "Microsoft has announced that it would restart
its piracy survey. But this would not happen without the acknowledgement of
CONFED-ITA. Our members are also keen to work closely with them if they solve
the existing issues. Then there won't be any necessity for survey or
actions," Karthikeyan claimed.

The executive members also feel that Microsoft should publicize the
advantages of going original rather than advertising the after effects of using
pirated software. "Unless there is enough awareness of advantages of opting
for original software among the public, there won't be improvement in the
situation. Microsoft has agreed to our claims as they have been doing for a
while."

The channel is now waiting for Microsoft to honor these agreements.