The software piracy rate in Serbia has been at 74 percent for three years running, meaning that only every fourth computer has a legal operating system, Microsoft said in a release.

Next to Albania and Montenegro, Serbia has the highest piracy rate in the region, and some IT companies which sell hardware and software are among the factors keeping the rate so high, according to a Microsoft research conducted over the last 12 months in almost 500 companies.

Between July and September 2010, as much as 24 percent of IT companies offered their customers the option to install pirated software, while 37 percent offered a computer without an operating system.

In the same period, 40 percent of IT companies offered computers with a legal operating system.

According to the same research, between January and June 2011, around 16 percent of IT companies offered pirated software, and another 16 percent machines without software, while 68 percent offered a legal system.

The data shows a mild rise in regular software selling methods of 28 percent over the last year, as a result of media and state attention to the software piracy problem, as well as the formation of a special unit for the control of software legality under the Tax Administration, said Microsoft Business Development Manager Milos Blagojevic.