Despite its previous deal falling apart, it appears that Dell will complete their anticipated purchase of Quest, a security software maker.
Dell will offer $23-$26 per share for the software company, similar to the previous deal that fell apart thanks to Dell’s awful quarterly earnings.
Back in March, Quest received a $23 per share offer from Insight Venture Partners. Quest did not accept the offer, however, saying during its shopping period it received multiple offers: “The alternative proposals are reasonably expected to lead to a superior proposal.”
Dell has been actively purchasing software companies over the past year, making five high and low profile acquisitions including SonicWall and Wyse.
The company is also said to be in talks to purchase BMC Software with its $17.2 billion cash hoard.
Result for: software companies
According to the latest Business Software Alliance (BSA) report, pirates cost software companies over $50 billion USD in 2009, with Asian nations accounting for a large amount of those losses.
Despite increases in anti-piracy efforts, 43 percent of all software being used on computers right now is pirated, up from 41 percent in 2008, reads the report.
Globally, losses mounted to $51.4 billion, with a whopping $16.5 billion coming from the Asia-Pacific region.
Overall, the BSA says the increase in piracy is thanks to the strong growth of PC owners in India, China and Brazil.
Victor Lim, a VP at IDC (which jointly carried out the study with the BSA) says that despite pirates software rates falling in 54 nations, it rose or stayed neutral in 57. Piracy rate in the Asia-Pacific territories was 59 percent, meaning that of of the 900 million pieces of commercial software installed in 2009, 530 million were unlicensed.
“This study makes clear that while efforts to bring down piracy levels in the Asia-Pacific are enjoying some success, dollar losses at over 16.5 billion (dollars) remain the highest in the world,” adds Jeffrey Hardee, BSA’s vice president and regional director. “This is unacceptable and there is still much to be done to engage governments, businesses and consumers on the risks and impact of software piracy.”
Some of the piracy rates for individual nations were shocking, especially in Eastern Europe were nations like Georgia, Moldova and Armenia all had over 90 percent. On the other end, the United States was the lowest on the list, at 20 percent, with Japan and Australia not far behind.
Result for: software companies
Officials in the United Arab Emirates have said they are growing more and more concerned with the rising levels of piracy in the region despite its reputation as the region leader in anti-piracy practices.
Estimates say 35-38 percent of all software sold in the UAE is counterfeit and that the number of pirated goods sold has risen 52 percent year over year. According to a survey conducted by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and global market research firm IDC, losses attributed to piracy rose to $94 million USD up from $62 million last year.
Overall software piracy in the Middle East rose to $2.45 billion, up 24 percent year on year.
In a similar announcement, the Ministry of Interior noted that arrests for software piracy had risen 107 percent year over year and that number seemed to be still growing.
“Software piracy is the easiest type of piracy because software is not tangible,” said Ahmad Al Jasim, regional manager of Autodesk Middle East. According to Al-Jasim, Autodesk sees a 55 percent piracy rate in the region.
“Software is usually on a CD and because a company’s knowledge is on this small storage device people can actually easily pirate it. The fakes come in mass volume, primarily from East Asia.”
He concluded that piracy is very hard to stop, despite active anti-piracy media from the state and the software companies.
“Even if you catch some there’s still more new pirates coming in every year…Then you try to catch them - it’s a continuous cycle.”
