Microsoft Cracking Down On Indian Pirates

India news portals itVARnews and CIOL report about 350 dealers joined in a statewide bandh (that’s a general strike) initiated by Surat-based South Gujarat Information Technologists Association (SITA).

This month, six PC dealers in Gujarat received notices from Microsoft for selling pirated copies of Windows. Microsoft demanding a payment of 200,000 Rupee ($4,955) and a fine of 1,600,000 Rupee ($39,638) if the vendor continued to sell pirated copies of the OS.

The argument is made that Microsoft is charging far too much for their OS in India and that it should scale with the rest of the market. Even without knowing the prices over there, it’s hard to not believe when we see what Americans are being charged (upwards of $400).

Indian computer shops have stressed that they are not charging for the pirate copies, but simply wish to not sell legal copies because of the price. The only resolve we will see from this is for Microsoft to change their pricing structure in India, or we will see Linux usage skyrocket.

Source: The Register