In defence of the Indian software user

N.S. Srikanth, Thiruvananthapuram

Dear Sir,

This is with regard to ''A pirate's best friend,'' by Kripa Raman in eWorld dated November 14.

At the outset let me clearly state that I do not in any way endorse software piracy.

But let us consider a few things. It is no use for software people to complain that the Indian user is not willing to pay even Rs 500 for the software when the average American worker earns 10 to 12 times the salary of the Indian worker of comparable skill sets.

Recently, a computer magazine carried a report about a person who wanted to buy image-editing software for his son. He found that it cost upward of Rs 40,000. He contacted a friend in the Gulf who bought it there $280 - one-fourth of the Indian price.

Why do these people have to charge the Indian customer four times the price they charge others when his earning capacity is only 1/12th of that of an American?

Apple offered its iMac for $1100, but Indian consumers were charged Rs 81,000 for the same configuration. Would you call this fair? Till Linux came along there was no alternative for us other than MS products.

So let the software people grow up to Indian conditions, unlike the American auto conglomerates who jumped into India thinking about the 300-million-strong middle class, when the middle class, as such, cannot be compared between India and the US in terms of purchasing power and disposable income.

Even in other areas Indians are short-changed. When I was chatting with a cousin about a year ago, I told him I did not buy a cell-phone because the cheapest handset at that time was Rs 4,000. He told me that the same handset, along with activation charges for three months, was being offered for $45 in Azerbaijan. So why blame Indian users?

Please e-mail us at eworld@thehindu.co.in if you have queries on computer usage or if you find an interesting way of using the computer.