Software piracy is quite high in Oman though the government is taking steps to counter it, a Microsoft official said.

'The piracy rate is very high in Oman,' Abdullah Nasser Lootah, Microsoft's Oman country manager, was quoted as saying in a Gulf News report.

'The government is doing something,' he said, adding that unlike in the past now there are lawsuits for breach of intellectual property rights in Oman.

'The government has even closed down shops for selling pirated software here in Mucsat,' he said.

'The losses to the industry and governments are in the billions compared to the small savings that people make by taking up pirated software.'