NATIONAL 9 (Spotlight Weelky)]

Legalize It

Are you holding license and certificates on registering your PC products?

BY AKSHAY SHARMA
and BINAY SHRESTHA

By registering the product, a consumer is approved to hold the license of ownership along with the certificates of great values. As a registered user, a consumer will receive 24-hour free technical support from experts, automatic notification on upgrades, special discounts and other services the company has promised to offer.

Subash Lohani, who works in the Institute of Foreign Affairs and has been using computers for nearly a decade says: "I am totally ignorant of registration procedures. Maybe it is because of the lack of awareness."

It takes about a minute to complete the process with the built-in application called Registration Wizard that will guide the user through the rest of the process.

What the consumer needs to do is to fill up the necessary field-codes and send the relevant data to the manufacturer for verification, giving the general details of the product, consumer and the vendor. The consumer can complete the registration electronically free of charge or do it manually by email. Most Nepalese users skip this important task and lose valuable complimentary benefits.

Ugwal Battacharaya, who teaches Hotel Management at the Ammadablam Institute of Hotel Management and uses the computer for an average of two hours per day, says, " I doubt that the system I'm using in my PC is currently registered at all."

Although there are no hassles in providing the necessary information for the manufacturer -- the most essential part of the registration -- users usually leave the fields blank or click on the "register later" dialogue box.

"It's faster and easier than making coffee," says Dhruba Ranjit of Unlimited Software. "A couple of minute is enough to get the thing done. Yet most consumers ignore this legal practice and fail to receive the valuable client-services in return. Those of the few serious users who go through with the complete registration process are rewarded with a wide range of facilities such as up-to-date information, seasonal offers, routinely business communications, free-discussion sites, free downloads etc. directly from the manufacturers. We have a very low index of the registered users. "

The registered users receive updated information giving detailed specifications of all incoming products. Download service center provides a collection of sample programs, patches and other programming aids to run and learn. Moreover, it is also a resource that can be used to download free binary files on the Internet. An automated, toll-free technical support service provides answers to common technical questions 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A collection of training and support materials are also made available to the registered users.

The proprietor for MIPS Pvt. Ltd. Ashok Bhattachan adds: "Registered users are the real license holders. Registration is a must for genuine consumers. The benefits should not reach those with pirated copies of the software and other multimedia products. Illegal reproductions and fake duplications have brutally crushed the legal market. Why should I spend in dollars if I could make it in rupees? Computing Acts should be properly built and its really hard, I suppose. Assembling-market has now captured and dominated the real one. The users are not aware of those warranty-cards and registration-cards at all."

There are plenty of options to complete the registration process. One of the efficient ways is free online registration. The users have other alternatives to complete the registration, by mail, through e-mail, via fax. Ranjan Dongol, a cyber caf' owner says, "I've gone through the registration procedure. I've registered for the free online tele-application. In return, they've given me the password. Beside, I've not registered my software and hardware. I just put them aside. I guess there will not be any difference even if I register."

A large number of computers and software are sold each day, but the question is: how many of them are registered.