MS crosses swords with pirates, to offer cloud software

In what will be a first for the country, technology giant Microsoft will offer its software suites like MS Office on rent over the Internet. The move is aimed at reducing software piracy, as the packages will be available for as low as Rs 120 a month. Allied with the offer of a low-cost personal computer at Rs 3,000 from Microsoft?s partner in this venture, Airtel, the combination is expected to appeal to retail consumers weaned on pirated software.

?The aim is to make the offerings so attractive that consumers will bypass the cheap, but pirated, stuff and go for original offerings. It will be something like Apple did with iTunes and the music industry,? said Sachin Duggal, CEO & president at Nivio, the technology company that claims credit for bringing Microsoft and Bharti Airtel into the venture. Though it is still early days, Duggal says SMEs could benefit hugely from this offering as it could significantly reduce their IT spend.

The Rs 3,000 PC, slated for a launch later this month, will access data and software hosted on Nivio?s cloud computing platform (cloud computing uses data or software stored on servers via the Internet). The offer will include services like broadband, anti-virus packages and software for a monthly sum of Rs 1,000.

Though critics argue cloud computing would find few takers in the country, given the low PC penetration and broad-band connections, along with the high piracy rate, Diptarup Chakraborti, principal research analyst at consultancy firm Gartner, counters that consumers are slowly opening up to the licence fee model for software use. Globally, software piracy accounts for losses of over $50 billion for the technology industry.

Analysts say though Microsoft has a fairly strong presence in cloud computing, it is constantly looking over its shoulder to find Google on its radar. Google recently announced plans to offer its Chrome operating system over the cloud (a synonym for the Web) free of cost, taking its rivalry with Microsoft to a new level.

Nivio, for its part, has already begun pilot runs of the service, which is slated to launch by the end of next year. It has already signed on Microsoft for its revenue-sharing model. ?Airtel will be the go-to-market partner for this initiative, where post-paid customers will be able to subscribe to the service. We will also offer it on a pre-paid model through our own Website,? said Duggal