How Piracy Opens Doors for Windows

Bill Gates may not be entirely dismayed by software thieves. They seed the world market and make Microsoft a standard.

The proliferation of pirated copies nevertheless establishes Microsoft products -- particularly Windows and Office -- as the software standard. As economies mature and flourish and people and companies begin buying legitimate versions, they usually buy Microsoft because most others already use it. It's called the network effect.

The gist of the beneficial piracy argument is that the retail price Microsoft charges for signature products such as Windows and Office -- as much as $669, depending on the version -- can rival the average annual household income in some developing countries. So the vast majority of those users opt for pirated versions.

Although the world's largest software maker spends millions of dollars annually to combat illegal copying and distribution of its products, critics allege -- and Microsoft acknowledges -- that piracy sometimes helps the company establish itself in emerging markets and fend off threats from free open-source programs.

Microsoft Corp. estimates it lost about $14 billion last year to software piracy -- and those may prove to be the most lucrative sales never made.

"The first dose is free," said Hal Varian, a professor of information management at UC Berkeley, facetiously comparing Microsoft's anti-piracy policy to street-corner marketing of illicit drugs. "Once you start using a product, you keep using it."

Even as the Internet makes global piracy easier than ever, Microsoft's revenue and profit have risen steadily. It earned $12 billion on $41.4 billion in revenue in calendar '05.

That record of success has led many experts and software companies to regard piracy as less of a problem than initially assumed or even part of a comprehensive strategy, said Eric Goldman, a law professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee and the former chief counsel of a Silicon Valley Internet firm.

"Is widespread piracy simply foregone revenue, a business model by accident or a business model by design?" he asked. "Maybe all three."

Of course, Microsoft executives prefer that people buy, but theft can build market share more quickly, as company co-founder and Chairman Bill Gates acknowledged in an unguarded moment in 1998.

"Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though," Gates told an audience at the University of Washington. "And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

That's exactly what has happened around the globe, according to the Business Software Alliance, a Microsoft-backed anti-piracy group. Even Vietnam, which at more than 90% has the highest piracy rate in the world, has improved from 100% in 1994. The No. 1 software firm in Vietnam: Microsoft.

Closer to the company's Redmond, Wash., headquarters, the decline of piracy in the United States has tracked Microsoft's rise. Stratospheric 25 years ago, the U.S. piracy rate dropped to 31% in 1994, then to 21% in 2004 -- the lowest in the world.

Microsoft's public posture on piracy is one of zero tolerance.

"We're all working five days a week and getting paid for three," said Cori Hartje, the company's director of license compliance. "We do everything we can to stop piracy."

The company sues online auctioneers and computer makers that supply pirated products, including Windows, the operating system for more than 90% of the world's personal computers. It cooperates with law enforcement agencies to seize pirated discs and warns users around the globe that counterfeit programs may destabilize their systems.