As regional director of Autodesk South Asia Pacific, André Pravaz is
responsible for business development, sales, marketing, finance and channel
strategy operations in ASEAN, India, Australia and New Zealand. Since he joined
Autodesk in 1998 as MD, Australia and New Zealand, Andre has successfully
increased business by 75 percent, despite the region experiencing a sluggish
economy. He is now spear- heading the "Zero Tolerance" campaign in a
bid to check piracy. In an exclusive interview with DQCI, Andre portrays
Autodesk’s initiatives to check piracy.
How much is piracy affecting the software business to day?
As per Business Software Alliance’s Year 2000 Piracy Rate study, India has
a piracy rate of 63 percent. This means six out of every ten installed software
in the market is pirated.
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What measures are you taking to educate the channel on the benefits of
selling legal software?
Channel should be free from piracy activities first and be committed to
participate in anti piracy initiatives by Autodesk and BSA/NASSCOM. We are
educating the channel about the importance of intellectual property rights (IPR).
The channel should demonstrate the importance of IPR by driving the message
that piracy is stealing and stealing is wrong. Stealing also affects the
livelihood of creators and the channel, who are in the business of selling
genuine software.
It is also important to note that everyone is involved in piracy despite
knowing that it is wrong. We will be emphasizing this at every channel event.
Autodesk had announced "Zero Tolerance" campaign towards illegal
users of Autodesk software. How successful has this campaign been and what has
been the outcome?
Our solutions cater to companies or professional firms that are involved in
creating design work. These companies value their creation and IPR as much as we
value ours.
It is sad to know that using pirated software to create such works undermines
the very concept of mutual respect for our intellectual properties.
We have sent warning letters to illegal users of our software. Channel
partners are also encouraged to educate and advise their customers against the
use of pirated software. Some illegal users respond to this and have converted
to legal licenses.
Recently, we have just conducted an unprecedented and successful raid in six
offices of a consultancy firm in five cities across India.
What are some of the hurdles when it comes to changing mindsets about
piracy?
One of the impediments in changing people’s mindset towards software
piracy is that they don’t understand that software theft is a crime, and like
any other theft is punishable by law.
In all crimes there is a victim. In piracy, culprits fail to understand that
their action is hurting someone else. They fail to see that each time they
install or copy pirated software, they are stealing someone else’s work and
property.
That is why we need to educate the public. The Government can
also play a pivotal role with the help of organizations like the BSA/NASSCOM.
Our target is always to reduce piracy as much as possible. We
will continue our anti-piracy activities and continue to use the full force of
the law until the Indian market realizes that we are extremely serious about
combating this issue.
Is high price of the software in anyway encouraging
piracy?
One should compare the value and content of the software when comparing the
price of a software product. A stolen copy of the software sold at a very
cheaper price creates this notion that price of the original software is very
expensive.
We find that there is no justification for comparing prices
between original and pirated copies as "free" software products are
also being pirated. We believe that price bears no relation to piracy.
The use of pirated software results in tremendous losses to
software developers as well as to the Government by way of tax revenues from
legitimate downstream business in the software industry in India.
Aspiring software developers in the country will also be
discouraged from creating new innovation if there is no respect for IPR and they
would be hesitant from exploiting their economic rights which would otherwise
benefit them from their creation.
What type of promotions and schemes did you run during the
year, both for partners and end-users?
We ran several promotions for the educational segment. These included
product bundles as well as special price deals for customers.
In the commercial segment one of our most successful
promotion was a option for AutoCAD R14 customers to upgrade to any of our
vertical products at the same price as they would pay to upgrade to the latest
AutoCAD.
How has the channel responded to your schemes sales-wise?
For the scheme which offered one upgrade price either to the latest AutoCAD
or any vertical product, the channel responded very positively. In fact most
partners saw an increase of 30 to 50 percent business during the last month of
this promotion.
What new products are on the anvil from your end?
We’ve just announced the launch of Autodesk Inventor Series on 31 Jan 2002
and have done a launch seminar series covering major cities in India in April
2002.
What according to you is the most cost-effective way to
reach out to the channel and in turn to the customer?
E-mail is the most cost effective measure. However, sometimes we also use
telemarketing as a means to communicate new promotions to the channel,
especially when their feedback is required on certain aspects of the promotion.
SUNILA PAUL in Bangalore