I came across some interesting statistics last week that kept me up for at least one night. According to a report released by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), more than a third of the software that was installed last year was pirated - can you imagine, more than 33% of it was illegally obtained.
All things considered, one has to think that everyone who owns a computer has to have some sort of money to be able to afford the hardware, so they cannot exactly be considered penniless.
One can also assume that these people are able to afford the software that goes with the equipment. But why are people still opting for the bootleg, the knock-off, the illegal copy?
The simple and most obvious answer to this question is that software is simply too expensive for the average Joe Bloggs or better yet the average small-scale company.
When you look at the cost of most software licences, you wonder if it really costs software vendors as much to develop the software as they charge us for the end product.
At first I was inclined to believe that software vendors had a valid argument for charging people such exorbitant prices for their products. However, I recently attended a presentation in which Jan Louis Previdi, a Meta Group analyst based in France, actually told the solutions company hosting him in SA that it and other solutions/software developers charge too much for their products.
Previdi was making an informed comment based on research that his company had carried out using current statistics. After all, Meta is a reputable research group.
Many companies have argued that the high costs don`t only cover production, they also include factors such as intellectual capital. Most software vendors have also tried to justify their pricing models based on the value of what the software can do for a company.
Licensing models
Although a lot of companies are making a concerted effort to give customers flexible licensing models as a way of helping them reduce the total cost of using their software packages, prices are still high.
And if software piracy is still way over the 90% mark in countries like Thailand and Vietnam, then there is still something to be said about the affordability of software - especially in developing countries.
Sometimes consumers are faced with no other option but to go the counterfeit route.
Kaunda Chama, features editor, ITWeb
Interestingly enough, the same thing can be said about the price of the average CD or DVD, because the number of counterfeit copies available on street corners or at flea markets is more than enough to confirm that retail prices for these commodities are rather too high.
As understandable as it is that companies need to make profit and show annual growth, I think that pegging their prices so high that people would rather risk buying inferior, illegal counterfeit copies than pay up for the original, says a lot.
I strongly believe the bottom line is that until such a time that software becomes much more affordable, the pirates of the silicon valley will continue to thrive and consumers will continue to support them. Sometimes consumers are faced with no other option but to go the counterfeit route - especially those home users who are not really in any danger of being visited by the BSA any time this millennium.
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