VietNamNet Bridge - Technology firms, which have incurred loss of revenue because of copyright infringement, have decided to rent, rather than sell, software to businesses at low fees.

In mid-September,  about 15 technology firms , including well-known names such as Microsoft, ODS, Vonline, Nhan Hoa, BKNS, ESC, Hostvn, and Mat Bao, joined forces to run a demand stimulus program in leasing copyrighted software.

Under the program, users can use Windows Server for free for six months if provided by these service providers.

Experts said that this was an effort to persuade businesses to use copyrighted software.

Vietnam is one of the countries with high software piracy level. The latest report of BSA (the Software Alliance) showed that the proportion of pirated software use in Vietnam is 78 percent, a drop of 3 percent compared with 2013. 

The decrease, according to BSA, is considerable, but the proportion remains very high. BSA once sued two Vietnamese companies for the unlicensed use of software.

The latest report of BSA (the Software Alliance) showed that the proportion of pirated software use in Vietnam is 78 percent, a drop of 3 percent compared with 2013.

However, regular inspection tours taken by state management agencies and the lawsuits have not deterred violators. Businesses continue to do so as they don’t have the habit to pay for software.

To cope with the problems, software firms have decided to apply a ‘soft’ measure to seek more revenue from users – leasing copyrighted software to businesses and organizations based on computing cloud basis.

Vietsoftware, CMCsoft, MISA, FAST and Lac Viet are the pioneers in leasing software.

The firms focus on solutions to business human resource management, from general ERP (enterprise resource planning) solutions to specific ones for office, personnel, business and accountancy.

In the field of hosting, there are about 10,000 servers sold every year in the Vietnamese market. The figure shows that the server rental and server software copyright rental markets are very promising.

An analyst said that it cost $1,000 to buy a Windows Server package. If businesses can rent a server with ready copyrighted software at the cost of just tens of dollars, they would be willing to pay for this.

License SPLA, for example, is now offered at $35 a month only for cPanel and $20 for Window.

“Instead of spending thousands of dollars to buy copyrighted software, it would be a much better solution to rent software,” he said. 

“If you lease software, you can always use the latest software versions,” he said.


Thanh Lich