Anonymous

London, UK

Sales & Marketing

I find this remark surprising:
"This is especially dubious given the widely held belief that software owners frequently connive at piracy as a route to establishing market domination."

Having worked in the software industry for several years, I've never come across any intimation whatsoever that software companies have colluded in piracy in order to establish market domination. Market domination does not have a great deal of value unless revenue is derived from sales or maintenance renewal, which is clearly not the case where software is pirated.

However, I do think it is probably the case that software vendors spanning the divide between professional and consumer users - for example, Adobe with Photoshop - build a business model that effectively acknowledges that many of the home users will not pay for the software, and derives revenue from the business end of the market.

To address the article's main points - I will paraphrase a quote, I think from a FAST representative: "Corporate users need to realise that illegally copying and using software is no different than walking into PC World and stealing an arm full of software from the shelves." For further discussion perhaps.