An anti-piracy software campaign recently launched in the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania has significantly lifted Microsoft_s sales in the region, a company official announced Tuesday.

"It was a tremendous success and we are starting to build our business in these countries," Bo Cruse, Microsoft managing director for the Baltic region said at a briefing in Vilnius. At the end of the six-month campaign, Microsoft_s sales in January were up around 500 percent in Lithuania, and 300 percent in Estonia and Latvia. Software piracy remains common in the Baltic states. According to Microsoft_s estimates the percentage of illegal software dipped only from 92 percent to 81 percent in Lithuania, from 90 percent to 85 percent in Latvia and from 86 percent to 72 percent in Estonia following the legalization campaign. The average for Europe is about 40 percent and for the Nordic countries about 35 percent, according to Norvald Heidel, Microsoft's anti-piracy manager for the Baltic and Nordic regions. Microsoft and the Business Software Alliance also worked with police and computer sellers to promote enforcement of software licenses. More than 30 court cases have been filed for copyright infringement following a crackdown on resellers and private users. A Lithuanian government official admitted that 40-60 percent of the government_s software is illegal, and said that nearly $1 million would be needed to buy legal copies.