31/072014
By Jorge Sukarie Neto, President of ABES
A recently launched study by BSA - The Software Alliance showed the world panorama of software piracy. The data reveal Brazil's progress in combating this practice, in addition to showing how the country is respecting intellectual property rights and values fair competition.
The survey indicates that Brazil has reduced the software piracy rate by three percentage points, from 53% to 50%. Although the decrease was not so high, this result is very representative for an emerging market that operated in the 1980s with a rate of more than 90%. In addition, we are the country in Latin America with the lowest percentage of piracy.
The reduction of these three points reveals that educational actions, such as those carried out by the Brazilian Association of Software Companies (ABES), are important to make entrepreneurs aware of the damage caused by piracy in the economy and for companies. In 2013, the association launched the Legal Entrepreneur initiative to guide and bring data that show the benefits of using original computer programs to make Brazil more competitive and combat unfair competition in the sector.
According to the study, security threats from “malware” (malicious software) in unlicensed programs was one of the main concerns raised by IT managers. When asked about the motivation for using legalized software, data loss was considered the main motivator, with 59%, followed by data breach (50%), disinfection time and cost (39%) and loss of proprietary information (38%). Despite this, only 35% of the companies, according to the IT managers interviewed, have a written policy that determines the use of licensed software in the companies.
This reality is also seen on the national scene. For this reason, ABES launches in this semester a Software Asset Management Manual, aimed at CIO's, entrepreneurs and professionals working in the IT area. The document highlights the importance of adopting a software management policy in companies in order to avoid future losses, whether in the financial, image or legal order, in addition to offering a step by step to develop an asset management in the company.
Currently, several types of software licensing are available on the market that meet the reality of each type of company. An example of this is the offer of software as a service in the cloud, which has significantly reduced the costs of companies with the purchase of licenses with flexibility in use and in the payment format. The various offers and marketing models combined with the fact that executives are more aware of the risks caused by piracy and the fragility in data security are factors that have contributed to the reduction of piracy in Brazil. Given this reality, what are expected are increasingly lower percentages within the next few years.
*Jorge Sukarie Neto he is President of ABES - Brazilian Association of Software Companies and a member of the entity since 1989. Graduated in Business Administration from Fundação Getúlio Vargas in 1986, and Post-graduated from the same institution in 1987, with an emphasis on Finance and Marketing. Specialization Course in Business Management done at Harvard Business School in Boston (USA). Sukarie is also a founding partner and President of Brasoftware Informática Ltda.
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