Along with my new notebook PC, I’ve been trying to buy a licensed version of Visio, the leading drawing software from Microsoft. I find it very surprising that the leading distributors listed in Microsoft’s website for my city (Pune, INDIA) aren’t aware of Visio and keep telling me that it does not form a part of Microsoft Office suite. When I tell them I know that but that Visio is very much a Microsoft product, they have no clue what to do. My attempts to buy Visio online on Microsoft’s official original software website also proved fruitless. You’re supposed to complete a long form specifying your requirements and hope that someone would contact you. Alternatively, you had to place an order with some unknown merchant in some part of India. Since I’m on the official Microsoft website, I’d expect Microsoft to let me place my order directly on itself and let it handle its backend logistics instead of exposing me to its supply chain and expecting me to share my confidential credit card information with unknown merchants.
While the power of computers and software has multiplied several hundred or thousand times in the last 25 years, it appears that the friction involved in buying licensed software hasn’t reduced one bit.
I remember in the late 80s, the most popular spreadsheet software was Lotus 1-2-3. But, try as you might, you couldn’t buy a licensed copy of Lotus 1-2-3. My employer of that time, Wipro, was extremely committed to using only licensed software on all PCs inside the company. Because it couldn’t source licensed versions of Lotus 1-2-3, Wipro decided to develop its own spreadsheet product – which was called Wipro 4-5-6, by the way.
Unfortunately, not all companies, let alone retail buyers, are in a position to develop their own drawing software just because it’s so difficult to buy a licensed copy of Visio. Instead, they might want to check out cloud-based alternatives like LovelyCharts, Gliffy and FlowChart.