The perennial lie from BSA. Piracy in third-world countries "costs" exactly nothing, since a reduction in piracy will not translate to increased sales. The sales volume of the $350 MS Office, for example, would be precisely zero in Vietnam with its $2000 per capita annual income (would you spend 17 percent of your annual income on MS Office?).
Tangentially, is the pirated DVD of Star Wars III available at Mangga Dua Mall in Jakarta yet? It's been almost 5 days now.
I guess Vietnam, China, and Cuba switching to Linux will be no great loss to Bill Gates. They never buy anything, anyway.
Angkor,
Rumor has that here in China, the movie was available on DVD this past Sunday. From what my sources tell me is that the quality is the "in the theater" recording style but the best possible in that format. No people talking, getting up to go to the bathroom, smoking....and the sound was pretty good.
I will research this further and report back.
From another perspective, a well qualified and experienced IT professional might make US $400/month here (Thailand); a teacher, US $150, which is less than the cost of Windows XP. A teacher has to work about 5/6 weeks to afford to buy a copy of XP! Office Pro is about US $500.
Yes, Linux is an alternative, and some governments are encouraging Linux both for their own use as well as for their citizens, but Linux takes more sophistication and experience to use and troubleshoot - experience that most people gain on Windows first.
To make matters worse, it is illegal (against the EULA) to use Microsoft, and I would guess most other, software in the country other than which it was purchased or licensed to use, so a consumer here has to pay $500 for Office, not the $350 you quote because of higher distribution costs due to poor distribution efficiency and competition in these countries.
It's not suprising that people turn to pirated software in Asia or that the Thai government exempted itself from the anti-piracy laws here. I agree that the loss figures that BSA spouts are utterly phoney. No way can people afford expensive software in these countries, and it is outrageous that then cannot even shop the globe for the cheapest price.
So you support Chinese and Vietcong piracy?
You'd think all these whiny IT folks that complain about outsourcing could think of a way to stop piracy. There has to be some way to code, write, or lock a medium device or download to prevent duplication.