Snigdha Karjatkar

Mumbai
May 18

On May 16, the entire reseller community of Gujarat declared a one-day bandh in order to register their protest when Microsoft served anti-piracy notices to resellers in Surat. On May 11, six partners in Gujarat received notices from Microsoft for selling pirated Microsoft software. In their routine campaign against piracy, Microsoft zeroed down on six partners helping install a pirated version of OS.

The modus operandi that was used as per the sources was a typical one. A dummy customer was sent who insisted on the installment of a particular OS. Once the pirated software was installed, a notice was served where the reseller had to pay a negotiable amount of Rs 2 lakh. The notice also stated that if the partner continued installing pirated software in the future also, the company would impose a fine of Rs 16 lakh on the partner.

This action against the reseller by Microsoft did not go down well with the entire reseller community in Gujarat. "Microsoft is targeting only resellers and not undertaking any activity to educate the end-user about the advantages of buying genuine copies of the software. People here are hardly aware about the usefulness of buying licensed copies of software. They assume that the PCs come bundled with the software," said a partner on condition of anonymity.

The resellers believe it is just a service that they are rendering to the customer. "The customer assumes that the dealer would install the OS when he comes to install the machine. Since we are not charging anything extra for installing the software, it means that we are actually not trading in pirated software, for us this is just a 'sewa' that we are offering to our customers. Besides the pricing of their operating systems is way too high for the Indian markets," said another partner from Gujarat.

The resellers expect the principle companies to bear the cost of OS. "We want the PC manufacturing companies to bear the cost of the operating system. They should mention the cost of the OS along with the other configuration that they mention in general in their advertisements," added another partner.

Boycotting MS
The resellers have planned a series of boycotts against what they see more as harassment than a strategic policy initiative of the company. As a first step the partners boycotted a training program by Microsoft that was scheduled last week. To take the protest another level up, the partners have also decided to stop all purchases of Microsoft products for this quarter. The resellers are also claiming that in this initiative they also have support from the distributors.

When contacted Brian Campbell, Director-Original Software Initiative, Microsoft India said, "Microsoft, through its own efforts and in partnership with other industry groups, is committed to increasing the understanding and appreciation for intellectual property rights, and original software. Further, Microsoft is committed to working with the channel to help them understand the benefits of original software. We expect our channels partners to support us in further spreading the message of the value of original software among the end-consumers, and we will continue to support all initiatives to do so."

The protests in the Gujarat market are expected to have repercussions in the Mumbai market as well. Partners dealing in Microsoft products believe that sales are likely to be hit if the boycott continues especially in this quarter.

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