EMEA business pay more than US $9.9 million for software misuse
The Business Software Alliance today reported that businesses across EMEA have paid more than £2.1 million (US $3.5m) in damages and a further £4 million (US $6.6m) to purchase software to legitimize their software use in the first six months of 2009.
According to the BSA, it undertakes more than 30 legal actions each working day across the EMEA region - targeting organizations that are suspected of using software illegal - whether through counterfeiting, deliberate piracy or unwittingly using more software than they have licenses for.
So far in 2009, UK businesses have paid nearly half a million British pounds ($800,000) - a worryingly high amount of unexpected and unbudgeted cost in an already unstable financial climate. This underlines advice from Software Asset Management specialists that software management should not be left to chance - in fact, many organizations that embrace improved software management practices actually see significant cost savings, rather than increased outlays.
