Turkey leading software piracy market: Microsoft

ISTANBUL - Reuters

Software piracy problemc has social aspects, Microsoft’s Tamer Özmen says. DHA photo

Turkey follows China in software piracy among Microsoft markets, which places the country off of the global company’s top 20 markets list, the local chief executive of the company has said.

In spite of being world’s 17th largest economy, Turkey follows South Africa in the Middle East and Africa region and takes the 25th place in terms of the size of Microsoft’s markets, Tamer Özmen, the chief executive officer of Microsoft Turkey, told Reuters.

“Turkey is the second-largest country after China in terms piracy within the Microsoft world. We are a country that does not like to pay for labor. We do not let others steal our assets, but we can accept using others’ possessions without paying for it, even at the company level. This has to change socially,” he said.

The rate of illicit use of software in Turkey is 62 percent, the market value of which is estimated at $526 million, according to the latest data from Business Software Alliance. These figures put Turkey among the largest countries in terms of pirated software along with China, Russia, India, Indonesia and Argentina.

The majority of information technology investments go toward hardware and the rest to software according to data from International Data Corporation, a global data provider on information technologies.

“The software sector in England, France and Germany is 11-fold larger than the software sector in Turkey. It is possible that [the country] may turn into more of an importer country and an economy that does not produce [high-]value-added goods,” Özmen said.

Interest in Fatih project

Özmen said Microsoft wants to take part in the Turkish government’s Fatih project to replace traditional blackboards and textbooks with electronic boards and tablet PCs.

“We are showing our work to TÜBİTAK [the Turkish Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey] for the Windows 8 [operating system] to be used in the tablets. [Google’s operating system] Android was chosen. We do not think that there is a competitive environment and believe that every system should be available to maintain a true competitive environment,” he said.

Microsoft plans to introduce its search engine, Bing, in the domestic market in 2014, he also said.