This article on Ars Technica, "Having dominated sales, Nintendo eyes piracy to pad profits" got me thinking. The article starts off by stating:
"Having conquered both the Xbox 360 and PS3 in sales, Nintendo's biggest competitor may be freeloading pirates."
While this is a very different market (consumer gaming consoles) than the ones we deal with (high value and other software used by businesses), it was interesting to see Nintendo recognizing the revenue opportunities in addressing its piracy problems. Nintendo is going after the pirates directly by "pressuring offending nations to clean up their act" through legislation.
Our approach with CodeArmor Intelligence is different: identify the businesses actually using the pirated software so you can directly recover revenue from them.
Of course, different markets require different strategies - the big takeaway for me here was the fact that an industry leader like Nintendo has recognized that the piracy scene is a source of competition that is eating into its revenue and is doing something to address the issue.
Many of the ISVs that we talk to know that piracy is eating into their revenues, too. Their next step is to quantify the size of the problem and identify the infringing businesses as part of their overall business strategy and planning.
- Michael
