The Hindu : Business : Piracy eating into revenues, says Autodesk

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 18, 2004

Business

Business

Piracy eating into revenues, says Autodesk

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE, AUG. 17. Autodesk, a U.S. based design software developer said on Tuesday that it was losing $367 million in potential revenues each year in India, because as many as 73 per cent of the users of its popular software products were `software pirates.'

"For every two companies that buy our software here, there are eight who steal," said Andre Pravaz, a Vice President at Autodesk, heading operations in the Asia Pacific region. The California based firm makes design software that can be used for diverse applications.

Mr. Pravaz told reporters, "We are not bothered if the software products are copied by students, but if it is taken up for commercial purposes and by training institutes, there is definitely a revenue loss and the federal Government must implement stringent measures to curb the menace." He said that much of the firm's future business was expected from Russia, India and China and other countries in the APac. The company had six million legal users of its software globally, but estimated between three times and four times as many were using it without paying for it.

Autodesk also had plans for increasing its staff strength here, from 83 to 200 by 2006. From worldwide sales, the firm earned some $952 million last year, with a fifth of it coming from APac. The $10 billion Computer-Aided Design market was growing 10 per cent and Autodesk's growth during the first quarter this year was 41 per cent, compared with the same period last year. The firm had appointed Vishal Dhupar as Managing Director of the South Asian region in view of the huge growth potential. Besides growing its marketing strength, the company aimed to strengthen application development and increase the number of developer partners from the present 40.

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