Stating The Obvious: Fixing Software Piracy Could Take Years

Craig Mundie, Microsoft (MSFT) chief research and strategy officer, was good enough to point out to Reuters that fixing software piracy issues in the developing world could take decades.

"Most of the Asian countries have the laws, some of the regulations – they probably need tuning up – but the biggest weakness is very few of them have made the necessary investment on the enforcement side," Mundie said.

Based on that assessment, which is almost certainly accurate, there may never be a complete solution to the problems. Countries, especially India and China, have hundreds of millions of people who could eventually use PC-based software like Windows.  Big Brother cannot watch them all.

Douglas A. McIntyre