Hola, Hilmar.

Same situation here in Argentina. The local costume for years was to use illegal copies, and even some of the biggest local corporation (and some subsidiaries from multinational ones), used lots of unlicensed software.

Pressure from software groups made for big licensing movements last year. Now, being in the worst economic crisis in decades, most software companies are simply not selling nothing.

You can imagine how hard it is for us to sell when even Microsoft can't. Fortunately, my company has a few big projects already going on, and a few of our customers are not so affected by the situation, so we could keep all the staff, when everyday we are hearing about layoffs from every kind of company.

Beside that, the currency devaluation we're undergoing had halved our sallaries, so even if one has a good programming job, the amount you earn is worth half in dollars. In our activity, that also means that US books, magazines, libraries, has doubled its cost now. Not a nice landscape, as you see.

Forgive me about the rant tone. It's difficult to avoid it this days.

Regards,
Martín



>>>The situation is changing gradually, due to campaigns by BSA. Companies are starting to get scared.
>>
>>Hilmar,
>>
>>BSA. Bolivia Software Administration? Just curious.
>
>Business Software Alliance. www.bsa.org. It represents the interests of major software companies, including Microsoft, Adobe, and others.
>
>>Also, I had no idea that there even was an illegal software problem within corporations. For personal use? Sure, but I have never worked for a company here that didn't have registered copies of all their software.
>
>Here in Bolivia, there definitely is. The situation is probably similar in most third-world countries.
>
>A few years ago, companies would typically have no licenses at all, or have a single license but install on multiple machines.
>
>Some 3-4 years ago, BSA started with major campaigns, aided by the relevant police department. 1-2 years earlier, the relevant laws were firmly established in theory. So now, companies are starting to get licenses for Windows, Office, etc. - or investigate Linux, etc.
>
>Hilmar.