Panipat dealers role out anti-piracy drive

Pooja S

New Delhi

February 11th, 2008

With an objective to discourage the customers from buying pirated software,
Panipat Computer Dealers Association will take out a rally in the region on 13th
February. The rally will commence from the bus stand in Panipat and will end at
Skylark. Close to 25 dealers and 50 engineers will role out the anti piracy
campaign on their bikes.

Elaborating further Ajay Singla, President, PCDA stated, "Microsoft has
been running the anti- piracy drive for quite sometime now but still customers
are unwilling to shell out money for the original software due to the price
factor. This rally is an initiative taken by Panipat dealers through which we
want to take public awareness to the next level. The thrust is not only on
buying Microsoft's software but also those available from Adobe, Coral, Oracle
and others in the list."

Apparently, this is not the primary reason why the dealers are full-flegedly
supporting the rally. According to Vivek Mittal of Apex Computers& Softwares,
dealers in the Panipat are petrified of Microsoft. It may be noted that very
recently one of the dealers in the region was blacklisted by the company and was
subjected to a fine of Rs 6 and a half lakhs. Further, Microsoft has cautioned
the dealer that if caught a second time, he would be subjected to imprisonment
and additional fine. "We are small dealers and do not have that kind of
money to escape punishment. One of the reasons why we are organizing this rally
is to show the company that we are supporting genuine software and discouraging
customers to buy pirated versions."

On asking why customers prefer to buy pirated versions Mittal
clarified," They get the pirated version for free of cost whereas buying
the original means that the customers will have to part with a handsome amount
of money. We lose business in the process of explaining them the benefits of
buying the original version but can't help it as we do not have the muscle to
fight with Microsoft."

Singla further clarified that the original windows operating system package
is valued at Rs 3500 and if a customer further wants to install windows office
then it costs him around Rs 14000 and Photoshop again is close to Rs 20000.
"The moment a customer is given the pricing details, he is no longer
interested in the benefits of installing the original operating system from
Microsoft. This is a loss for us but we don't want to function under any kind of
threat. If a customer installs pirated versions of other software, we will not
be responsible for it and as per law will not be scrutinized by Microsoft."
e also mentioned that if the customers buy the original version, we will have no
botherations from both the company and the customers end. "The customers
will get more stability as there is almost a negligible fault ratio with the
original operating system and the company will also not intervene and blacklist
us," stated Singla.

Rahul Kapoor of Digitech Computers mentioned, "There is no awareness
among customers and they mostly seek pirated versions because they get it for
free. At the moment 50 percent of clients that come to me prefer to buy the
pirated operating system."

He also added that during the rally they will be putting up banners and will
majorly target the industrial belt as the companies operating in the region are
the major buyers of computers. "There are many industries that buy a
minimum of 4-5 computers from us and prefer the pirated version. Linux is also
available as an option but many of the customers don't know how to operate on
it. All of the above reasons contribute to the rise in piracy and we don't want
to support it."