RI must develop software to progress
RI must develop software to progress
JAKARTA (JP): To obtain licenses in developing computer
software in Indonesia is the key of success in dealing with the
business, Chairman of the Indonesian Computer Software
Association Achmad Firwany said yesterday.
"The U.S. Business Software Alliance has agreed to assist the
association in developing software in Indonesia through searching
for software products specific to the country's needs," said
Firwany.
Safwan Natanagara, chairman of the Indonesian Computer
Society, said Indonesia has the potential to develop its own
computer software business because it has enough human resources
in the field.
Firwany and Safwan said that the progress of the computer
business will be exhibited at the four-day national computer
conference and exhibition at the Jakarta Convention Center
beginning tomorrow.
Computerized verses of the holy Koran with Indonesian
translations will be part of the exhibition, which is expected to
be opened by Minister of Industry Tunky Ariwibowo.
According to Firwany, diskettes of the Koran will be available
for sale by next year.
At the conference, sixty papers will be delivered by computer
and legal experts, including five from overseas.
"Copying software has been the major cause of computer piracy
in Indonesia," said Firwany, also chairman of the organizing
committee of the conference and exhibition.
Seventy percent of some 250,000 branded units of computer
software annually sold in Indonesia are allegedly illegal copies,
he said.
The figure is, however, lower than that claimed by
the U.S. Business Software Alliance, which said Indonesia has a
99 percent piracy rate for computer software sales.
The International Intellectual Property Alliance, the U.S.-
based Software Publishers Association and Business Software
Alliance have asked the U.S. Trade representative to move
Indonesia from the Watching List to the Priority List for
Investigations. The proposed action was made in March following
the successful measures taken by the U.S Trade Representative
against piracy of copyrights, patents and trademarks in China.
Reuter quoted Software Publishers Association's director of
litigation, Sandra Sellers, as saying in Singapore recently that
the next hot spot (for litigation) in Asia was Indonesia. Sellers
claimed to have received complaints regarding Indonesia and
planned to put Indonesia next on the association's list.
A deputy chairman of the Investment Coordinating Board,
Richard P. Napitupulu, has challenged the allegation of computer
software piracy by saying that Indonesia's technology had not yet
reached the level of capability to pirate such software.(kod)