Back in July, I wrote this piece based on a thought that had kept lingering in my head since long - Piracy. We got a fiery response from the users in the comments section. While, many did talk about constructive ways to end piracy, there were quite a few who openly embraced it without any remorse. For example to quote what one fellow said, "I will live,eat and drink pirated software from OS to third party software for Windows and even PS2 Games. I'm not interested in spending a rupee on any software unless the price is affordable to everyone. I hail piracy and it will rule forever." This is just one of the many comments that showed the community distressed with high software ownership costs.


And today, The Economic Times reported a survey conducted by Microsoft that says 86 percent consumers in India are ready to pay more for genuine software. About 2000 people from India that had a personal computer and were prime decision makers participated in this survey. Now if these figures are true, then we'd be nothing but proud. But from the response we've seen on the matter till date, we're a little skeptical. Maybe the people surveyed were afraid to accept their submission to piracy, and thus chose to answer otherwise. But the good thing to take out of this survey is the increased awareness amongst the Indian people about the existence and ill-effects of pirated software.

The survey also said that 75 percent people believed genuine software is more secure, stable and easier to keep up-to-date. We'd agree, as using some pirated versions of Windows won't let you get critical security updates or bug fixes, which in turn could compromise on system stability. On a side note, we believe the purchases of genuine Microsoft Windows must have got a shot in the arm due to rising laptop sales and its monopoly - most of them have an original copy pre-installed and inclusive of the total cost.