When I travel through Africa, the high piracy rate is often something we address. Not necessarily from a commercial perspective but much more from a security angle. We know that pirated software is often infected with malware and therefore used for criminal activities. However, the discussion is a difficult one, as a lot of people do not really see the value of software as you cannot touch it. I sometime face discussions like a customer telling me that they hired a consulting company to assess their security and now they want Microsoft’s help to fix the problems. When we talk about Microsoft Consulting Services, the customer tells me: “I am paying so much for your software, why do I have to pay for consultants as well?” It is often clear for them that consulting has a price but the value of software is what we have to “sell” there.
Now, the government of Nigeria and Microsoft started to use music to fight Cybercrime (not only piracy). This is a thrilling way to spread the word and to address the target audience – something I think you should look at.
Here you find the press release by the Nigerian government: EFCC, Microsoft, Employ Music To Fight Cybercrime
The music clip can be found here.
And finally, a blog post but Tim Cranton, an Associate General Counsel at Microsoft: ‘Maga No Need Pay’: Nigeria Gets Creative to Fight Cyber Scams
Have a lot of fun
Roger