Tech Shout!

In the first week of June 2006, Symantec, owners of the Norton AntiVirus brand, randomly raided shops across Mumbai to check for pirated copies of its software products. The raid was conducted on five to seven shops simultaneously. However, only one partner, Balaji Computers in Andheri, Mumbai, was found with a pirated Norton CD.

According to market sources, drops in sales as well as duplicate registrations were the reasons that prompted Symantec to conduct these raids.

Chandresh Shah from Compuguide, an authorized dealer who was raided, was offended by the high-held manner in which Symantec treated them and said, “I had purchased a CD from Best IT World in Andheri with an Ingram seal. Some foreigners from Symantec entered the shop and broke the seal and found the CD to be an original one. This is unfair on authorized dealers. The vendor should provide us with a replacement when they find it to be an original.” On its part, Symantec has heeded his request and did replace the CD.

Vishal Gupta from Data Force, a sub-distributor for Symantec, said, “Symantec noticed that since the last couple of months two registrations were happening under the same key number in the website. This prompted it to conduct the raid. Also, it was observed that the sales were slackening.”

Added Shrikant Chincholikar, product manager for Symantec at Ingram Micro, “There was an immense slowdown particularly in the Norton brand because of piracy, which takes away a huge chunk of business.”

It was emphasized that vendors need to make identification of original products easier for the channel partner. It was suggested that serial numbers and hologram seals should be included on original Cds, inorder to help dealers identify the originals.

Sources said that a fortnight ago HP too had conducted similar raids with regards to its cartridges. When contacted, HP said that it is the Asia-Pacific team that drives these anti-piracy initiatives and the Indian team cannot comment on it.

With Compuguide, Multimedia Shoppe, Radiant Technologies and other few shops being raided, it seems Symantec is taking the issue of piracy seriously. However, when contacted, Symantec said it had nothing further to add at the moment.