Microsoft puts faith in Indonesia despite rife piracy

JAKARTA (JP): The Microsoft Corporation continues to have strong faith in Indonesia although the country ranks among the worst in the world when it comes to protecting intellectual property rights for computer software.

"We are here for the long term, even though we are not getting paid for (most of) our products," Regional Director for South Asia Christophe Aulnette told journalists on Thursday.

Aulnette, whose office in Singapore oversees seven Microsoft subsidiaries in the region, considered software piracy "a challenge" for his Indonesian team.

Industry sources estimated that as many as 95 percent of computer programs used in Indonesia are pirated, and being the market leader, Microsoft suffers the most.

"It is one of the highest (rates of piracy) in the world," said Aulnette, who is in town for the Indonesian International Telecommunication, Media and Information Technology (INTELMIT 2000) conference and exhibition.

Another way of measuring the incidence of computer piracy is through establishing "revenue per personal computer" and Indonesia has the lowest score in Microsoft's global operation.

Microsoft, nevertheless, has no intention of withdrawing from Indonesia, which Aulnette says, has strong business potential given its population of more than 210 million people.

Among the seven countries he oversees, Indonesia ranks sixth in terms of revenue, or as he put it, "well above Vietnam." The other five countries are India, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines respectively.

Aulnette said the South Asian market was the fastest growing of Microsoft's global markets in 1999, and he singled out India as the country with the highest growth rate.

Microsoft's decision to remain in the region throughout the Asian financial crisis, he said, proved to be the right one.

Microsoft's Indonesian office even expanded from a staff of 24 to 34 during that period.

Aulnette welcomed the Indonesian government's efforts to resolve the piracy problem, noting that a new legislation on intellectual property rights would come into effect in August.

But equally important is the enforcement of the legislation, he said, underlining the fact that India, which has a good record of enforcing copyright laws, has seen its own information technology (IT) and software industries boom.

"It is not only for Microsoft's benefit. It (the legislation and its enforcement) will protect local intellectual property rights and help the development of the local IT industry," he said.

"The states that do that are not doing it to please Microsoft. They are doing it for themselves," he added.

He said enforcement in any country usually began with the government itself using original computer programs instead of the pirated versions.

Large corporations follow and then the middle and small enterprises before the habit is picked up by individual users.

The software giant also sees a major role in helping to develop the IT industry in Indonesia, by working in partnership with local companies to add value to the software industry and to transfer their expertise to local IT workers.

Microsoft Indonesia now counts on the partnerships of nearly 1,000 local companies, including 26 solution providers which has the higher added value end of the business.

In spite of the huge market Indonesia can potentially offer, Microsoft has no immediate plans to launch versions of its products in Bahasa Indonesia, not even the popular ones such as Windows 98, Windows 2000, Office 2000 or the Internet Explorer.

"It's a business decision, although that is not the only factor," Aulnette said when asked to comment on the specific reason.

In contrast, Microsoft has released the Vietnamese versions of some of its products although Vietnam counts as Microsoft's smallest market.

The closest Microsoft will go in accommodating the Indonesian language is in providing an Indonesian spell check function to go with Office 2000, which will be released in July.

Local computer experts say Internet use in Indonesia would grow even faster if companies had bothered to develop Indonesian language programs and websites, given that the majority of Indonesians do not speak or write English fluently. (emb)