Microsoft intensifies drive against piracy

CEBU, Philippines – As the public sector strengthens its enforcement on the wide-spread piracy in the country, Microsoft Philippines is also intensifying its drive to provide affordable software packages to the consumer market.

In an interview with its Windows client product manager Chay Mondejar-Saputil, she said that they now made genuine Microsoft software products more affordable so that consumers can comply with the anti-piracy campaigns that are now strictly enforced by the Pilipinas Anti Piracy Team (PAPT).

She said that as a proactive measure to help consumers acquire genuine licenses for their software, they have made their rates more affordable through the “get genuine Windows advantage” (GGWA) which contains a paper volume license that is easy to use.

“While the PAPT is active on cracking down piracy in households, net cafés and business establishments, we are now offering the GGWA at a discounted rate until June. This is our way of helping our customers to get genuine software licenses,” said Saputil.

Since the Windows fully-packaged products are way too expensive for average household or companies, Microsoft created the GGWA with almost same price with pre-installed software products.

She said that right now, most consumers worry if they have bought the right licenses or not because there have been cases which some consumers have bought illegitimate licenses from opportunists who have sold counterfeit copies.

“A lot of our consumers are worried that they will be visited by PAPT and they would find out that they were sold counterfeit copies. We really encourage everyone to install original copies. It is not legal to install or store pirated Windows,” she said.

She said that there are ways to determine if a particular software installed in a personal computer or laptop is genuine or now and that is through validating it in the Windows website.

Saputil said that right now, there are over 100, 000 Windows software installed in the Philippines and about 60, 000 of which are pirated copies.

She said that this reflects the recent IDC report that the Philippines has 69 percent piracy rate.

However she said that the efforts on anti-piracy here in the Philippines have been slowly gaining grounds as this rate has been higher at 71 percent for the past three years.

“The aggressive move to curb piracy in the country is very positive for us because it will help strengthen the confidence on IT investments especially on software. Our company is ready to extend help and to consistently educate the market on buying the right license,” said Saputil.

This coming April 13, the Pilipinas Anti Piracy Team (PAPT) will be having a piracy crackdown here in Cebu. –THE FREEMAN