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)