The Business Software Alliance (BSA) stated in their annual report that the revenue from software piracy in 2010 has reached record highs. The alliance stated that piracy worldwide is now costing the industry $59 billion. They also said that it seems as though the piracy is primarily occurring in emerging markets where PC growth is taking place.
In terms of piracy rates according to region, the central/eastern regions of Europe and South and Central America ranked the highest. The regions all tied at 64 percent. The BSA said that the commercial value of software piracy has grown 14 percent in a mere year.
The BSA represents the entire software industry. BSA president and chief executive Robert Holleyman said in a statement, “The software industry is being robbed blind. Nearly $59 billion worth of products were stolen last year — and the rates of theft are completely out of control in the world's fastest-growing markets. The irony is people everywhere value intellectual property rights, but in many cases they don't understand they are getting their software illegally."
The BSA reported that the global market for personal computers skyrocketed in 2010. As PCMag puts it, “for the first time, PC shipments to emerging economies outpaced those to mature markets, 174 million to 173 million.”
The BSA stated that “the problem is that people often do not realize the software they are using is illegal.” The BSA found that the most common form of piracy that was found in the emerging economies was when an individual would buy a single copy of software and then install it onto multiple computers. They also found that businesses were doing this as well. The organization discovered that an entire fifty-one percent of PC users (including businesses) in these emerging markets did not realize that installing a single copy of software onto multiple computers was illegal. A BSA spokeswoman said that they obtained all of this information from Ipsos and IDC. She also said that Ipsos surveyed more than 15,000 different consumer and business PC users to get the best possible picture of the “software load” per PC.
I don’t think that it is surprising that the piracy rates have gone up. Now, I’m not saying that it's right by any means. There is no gray area when it comes to piracy. It’s simply illegal, but with the economy in the state that it is, there really isn’t any extra cash floating around to buy multiple copies of software when you can really just use one. I’m not saying it's right, but it does make sense that the rates are setting records.
In terms of piracy rates according to region, the central/eastern regions of Europe and South and Central America ranked the highest. The regions all tied at 64 percent. The BSA said that the commercial value of software piracy has grown 14 percent in a mere year.
The BSA represents the entire software industry. BSA president and chief executive Robert Holleyman said in a statement, “The software industry is being robbed blind. Nearly $59 billion worth of products were stolen last year — and the rates of theft are completely out of control in the world's fastest-growing markets. The irony is people everywhere value intellectual property rights, but in many cases they don't understand they are getting their software illegally."
The BSA reported that the global market for personal computers skyrocketed in 2010. As PCMag puts it, “for the first time, PC shipments to emerging economies outpaced those to mature markets, 174 million to 173 million.”
The BSA stated that “the problem is that people often do not realize the software they are using is illegal.” The BSA found that the most common form of piracy that was found in the emerging economies was when an individual would buy a single copy of software and then install it onto multiple computers. They also found that businesses were doing this as well. The organization discovered that an entire fifty-one percent of PC users (including businesses) in these emerging markets did not realize that installing a single copy of software onto multiple computers was illegal. A BSA spokeswoman said that they obtained all of this information from Ipsos and IDC. She also said that Ipsos surveyed more than 15,000 different consumer and business PC users to get the best possible picture of the “software load” per PC.
I don’t think that it is surprising that the piracy rates have gone up. Now, I’m not saying that it's right by any means. There is no gray area when it comes to piracy. It’s simply illegal, but with the economy in the state that it is, there really isn’t any extra cash floating around to buy multiple copies of software when you can really just use one. I’m not saying it's right, but it does make sense that the rates are setting records.
I love USB flash drives. I think these little suckers are one of the best things to hit computers since sliced bread. I used a flash drive almost every day this past semester of school and boy was it a nifty thing to keep around. Almost every piece of school work I had to do this past semester is on my trusty 2GB Toshiba flash drive.
Put your eye on the problem with 
So, in my time as a blogger I have written about some pretty interesting things. I have also written about some pretty strange things and even some downright absurd things. However, this story may just be in a league of its own.
The next couple of weeks are going to be pretty busy for most, what with Mother's Day, summer vacation and school graduations all on the horizon. Well, because of that, Microsoft has given the shopping section of its Bing search engine a little bit of a makeover which includes the ability to link it to Facebook accounts.
Microsoft has finally opened the door to its cloud-based Office 365 and is now offering the service as a public beta for anybody and everybody to try out. The beta is available in 38 countries as well as 17 languages. The new beta also follows several months of limited testing with a few thousand businesses that were able to take the service out for an early test drive. After this public beta, Office 365 will officially launch later this year.
Bad news for the computer industry has just recently been released. Thanks to weak demand for consumer PCs, growth for worldwide PC shipments showed a 1.1% decline from the first quarter of 2010 according to a Gartner's PC Quarterly Statistics Worldwide by Region program. Weak demand for consumer PCs was the primary inhibitor. However, despite the weakening of sales around the globe, the Asia Pacific region showed encouraging growth as PC shipments surpassed 28.2 million in the first quarter of 2011. This is interesting due to the fact that, statistically speaking, sales of consumer PCs usually do not show this much popularity or growth in the beginning of the year. The first quarter of most years is stereotypically slow for PC sales. Gartner also noted, however, that these shipment results indicate potential sluggishness and not a typical seasonal slowdown. Gartner pointed out that these figures are well below earlier predictions for a 3% growth in the first quarter of 2011. In response to different markets in Asia, Gartner said that consumer PC sales were also slow both in China and also in Taiwan and that they failed to attract customers during the celebration of Chinese New Year. Consumers in India were occupied by the Cricket World Cup and preferred to upgrade their personal PCs or buy a new TV rather than home electronics. In addition to that, PC shipments in Japan hit a decline of 13.1% in 2011's first quarter. According to Principle Analyst for Gartner Mikako Kitagawa, "Weak demand for consumer PCs was the biggest inhibitor of growth. Low prices for consumer PCs, which had long stimulated growth, no longer attracted buyers. Instead, consumers turned their attention to media tablets and other consumer electronics. With the launch of the iPad 2 in February, more consumers either switched to buying an alternative device, or simply held back from buying PCs. We're investigating whether this trend is likely to have a long-term effect on the PC market." Computer company HP accounted for 17.6% of worldwide PC shipments in the first quarter of 2011. HP also maintained the number one spot. Acer saw declining shipments of 12.2% and Dell reported a shipment decline year-over-year for the first time in six quarters. Lenovo continued to price products competitively in the consumer market as well as the professional market and enjoyed the strongest growth among the top vendors as a result. Source: 