Microsoft – Indonesian Government MoU

The Indonesian update published by The Indonesian Institute

The signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)
between the RI Government(was represented by the Communications
and Information Minister, Sofyan Djalil)and Microsoft South-East
Asia, on November 14, 2006, reaped the controversy in public
discourse.This MoU contained about the Indonesian government
intention to buy about 35.496 units of Microsoft Windows license
(US$ 274/unit)and 117.480 units of Microsoft Office
(US$ 179/unit) with the total value of Rp 377,6 billion.

The agreement has not been enforced. It mentions that
the Indonesian governmentneeds to consider its capacity
in binding the agreement This will depend on:
(i) the sufficiency of the officional national budget (APBN)
to pay the license;and (ii) the provisions in the procurement
regulation of government goods andservices.The period of MoU
validityis restricted, that is:(i) up to the date the binding
agreement is signed; or (ii) on March 31 2007,
whichever occurs first.

Even thought it has not been implemented, many parties
including the IndonesianInformation Technology community
(IT), accused that the government  betrayed
the commitment that was agreed by the previous government.
On June 30, 2004,The Research and Technology Minister,
Communication and Information Minister,the Legal Affair
and Human Rights Minister, Empowering of the State
Apparatus Minister,and the Education Minister, d
eclared the Indonesian go Open Sources (IGOS)

The IGOS Declaration states that the Government and
the peoples agreedto develop and the utilize open source
software, as  strategic steps  to speed up the information
technology in Indonesia.

Reactions also emerged from 12 members of the Commission I of
House Representatives(DPR). They are organized into
the BroadcastingCaucus. The legislators asked the government
to cancelled the MoU.A Member of the Caucus,
Marzuki Darusman,stated thatthe transaction formalized
in MoU was incompatible with theUU No. 5/ 1999
on business competition.

The Commission for the supervision of Business
Competition (KPPU)has a similar perspective.
This institution considers the MoU
a violation of the Presidential Regulation No. 8/2006 on
the Conduct of the Procurement of goods and services for
the Government.In the regulation, each agency was obliged
to infrom the peopleabout the tender process in the procurement
of any goods and services. Because of that
the House Representativeswill begin to investigate
the case by asking the Communications and Information Minister
(Menkominfo)in the public hearing, February 2, 2007.

Menkominfo denied all the charges. He said that the signing
of MoUwas meant to give the example for the business world
concerningthe importance to use licensed software,and
also asthe implementation of the government commitment
to protectintellectualproperty rights (IPR) in Indonesia.

At this time, Menkominfo said that the software piracy rate
in Indonesia is still high (87%), so Indonesia noted in
International Watchlist.This condition was certainly
depraved Indonesian image especiallyin the International
market. Because of this,the Indonesian government made
a commitmentto reduce piracy rate to around 77%
during this 2007.

For the IT community, there is no guarantee that the
piracy rate will decrease after MoU was signed.
If the government indeed had the commitment to protect IPR
the government ought to support the use of alternative
technology open source that could be received
by the peoples for free. In addition, the capacity of the
peoplesand Indonesian business sector are still limited to
purchasethe Windows license.

According to this problem, the government should consider
several steps: 

1.  To undertake the commitment as being stated in
   the Declaration of IGOS. Then the Indonesian community
   could enjoy in using software based open source,
   which was more covered campared with software that is not
   be based on open source,like software made by Microsoft.

2. If the business world and the government still have
intention to use software that not be based on open
source,it could be done by reducing the cost of purchase
the license only to operation system, not the application
replaceable by open source (Office, Mailer, Browser, etc.).