Romania built on pirated Microsoft, thanks Bill says President

Stan Beer
Monday, 05 February 2007 04:07

Opinion and Analysis

The dilemma facing Microsoft is that it cannot afford to crack down too heavily on piracy in countries like Romania and China for fear of driving developers into the arms of Linux. Yet if Microsoft doesn't show some resistance to piracy in emerging economies it doesn't play well to customers in the developed world who pay for their Microsoft software.

Like many other Eastern European nations like Poland and Russia, Romania is becoming a popular destination for offshore development because of the comparatively cheap labour costs. The ability of developers in such countries to use pirated software with relative impunity must further rankle developers in high cost locations who are forced to pay for their software.

It must also annoy corporations in the West who have previously suffered the indignity of raids, subsequent audits and fines because a relatively small percentage of their software was found to be non compliant. One such highly publicised case in 2000 involved guitar string maker Ernie Ball, which was raided by the BSA and found to have a relatively small proportion of unlicensed programs on its premises.

While the BSA made a big noise about its collar in the media, the result was that Ernie Ball, miffed by its treatment, ditched Microsoft and has been a 100% Linux site ever since.

Meanwhile, Linux and other open source advocates, who believe that the cost component of software should be based on services and support, may be sitting back and having a good laugh at Microsoft's latest embarrassing episode in Romania.

However, secretly Microsoft could just as easily be having a rib tickling laugh at the expense of Linux. There is not a single nation that matters in the developing IT world where Microsoft has not managed to gain a significant market share and it's largely due to the rampant software piracy that Microsoft purports to loath.