Piracy purge could benefit VARs
40,000 extra channel jobs could come from 10 per cent cut in UK piracy rate
Up to 40,000 extra jobs could be created, many of them in the channel, if the UK's piracy rate was reduced by just 10 per cent, according to research firm IDC.
The analyst has carried out the largest software piracy study to date, covering 57 countries, in conjunction with independent industry watchdog the Business Software Alliance (BSA).
According to IDC's research, the UK's rate of unlicensed sales is one of the lowest in the world, at just 25 per cent.
Richard Robinson, vice president of go-to-market solutions at IDC, said the study took into account the hypothetical situation of reducing global software piracy by 10 per cent.
"If this happened the value of the UK IT sector would increase from £37.5bn to £54.4bn, and create 40,000 UK jobs over four years," he said.
Robinson added that the reduction would have a knock-on effect on the rest of the British economy because it could generate an additional £2.5bn in tax revenues and £10bn towards GDP.
Mark Floisand, chairman of the BSA, claimed the channel would be one of the main beneficiaries of the reduction in piracy.
"Clearly, a sizeable chunk of this additional revenue would filter through to the channel and a large number of channel jobs would be indirectly created in the process," he said.
"From a channel perspective, resellers are effectively selling three copies of a software product and giving one away."
Floisand added that resellers have the opportunity to increase turnover by a third if they crack down on piracy.
"We are not going to go from 25 per cent to 15 per cent piracy in a heartbeat, but if we continue to whittle away at it over the next couple of years this figure is absolutely achievable," he said.
Julia Phillpot, licence compliance and channel enforcement group manager at Microsoft, said two key points would help to achieve this.
"Vendors must clean up the channel to create a level, fair playing field by clamping down on pirates, and also promote software asset management and cost-effective licensing," she said.