In a bid to make its software easily accessible to customers, Microsoft last week launched its eCommerce portal — a one-stop shop for all Microsoft retail pack products last week. The range of products offered through this framework includes Windows Vista, Office, Servers, XBox and games. In this initiative, Studio Smile is partnering with Microsoft as eCommerce service provider.

It has been reported that software piracy in India stands at 71 per cent and the country lost $1,25 million in 2006 to software piracy. Microsoft believes an initiative like this is imperative to ensure that original software becomes accessible all across the country.

“Accessibility to original software is a key challenge, especially in smaller towns and cities. This portal is an online marketplace as it provides an opportunity to a number of partners and individuals to retail original software, enabling widespread availability,” says Brian Campbell, director, original software initiative, Microsoft India.

The portal — www.buyoriginalms.com — allows not just traditional offline partners and widely used web portals to integrate into the system, but also gives any channel partner, blogger or individual the option of building their customised site through which they can retail original Microsoft products.