The Macau Special Administrative Region (SAR) government signed an agreement last week with Microsoft Hong Kong to ensure protection of Microsoft's intellectual property rights in all of the SAR's 44 government departments.
The move represents a major step toward thwarting software piracy, according to Macanese officials, who had sent out a dispatch in April this year forbidding public departments to use software products without official licenses.
Macau, a former Chinese colony near Hong Kong, last year reverted to Chinese rule and became a SAR, with its own government and laws.
Under the terms of the Microsoft Select Agreement, the Macau government will adopt a pay-as-you-go model, in which it will purchase Microsoft software according to its IT needs, officials said. The Macau government will receive a 35 percent discount for products brought during the two-year period of the agreement, making a saving in public spending of approximately MOP$7 million Macanese patacas (US$870,800) in total, according to Lidia da Luz, director of the Administration and Civil Service Bureau, government of Macau.
The Select License will give the government concessions to get updated software, obtain software for training purposes and evaluate software prior to licensing, according to Microsoft officials.
The total number of PCs and servers deployed by the Macau government totals about 7,000, said Joe Tou, sub-director of the Administration and Civil Service Bureau, government of Macau.
The Macau government is the second Asian government to sign the Select Agreement, after Taiwan, said Graham Brant, general manager of Microsoft Hong Kong.