Grace S. Gandhi, Jakarta – President Director of PT Microsoft Indonesia Tony Chen denied that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Information and Communication Minister and Microsoft was arranged covertly.

When pressed that other government officials were uninformed of the agreement, including those at the Department of Information and Communication, Tony acknowledged that he did not know very much about the matter. However, this was not aimed at another (negative) purpose.

The purchase agreement was not publicized, Tony told Tempo Wednesday (01/10), because Microsoft offered a huge discount to the government. "We offered a discount of more than 70 percent."

According to him, if the discount offer becomes bigger, other countries could demand the same thing. Microsoft once offered a discount to Egypt and China as well. However, Microsoft gave a very special price for the Indonesian government. "In addition, with the discount, it will benefit the Indonesian government," he said.

Tony said that the agreement was a positive matter since the purpose of the Indonesian government was to legalize software that government offices used. It was also the government's intention to appreciate intellectual property rights in the country.

In an MoU that Information and Communication Minister Sofyan Djalil and the President of Microsoft of Southeast Asia Chris Atkinson signed on 14 November 2006, the government agreed to buy 35,496 licenses of Microsoft Windows and 177,480 licenses of Microsoft Office.