Building an Internet company on a foundation consisting of proprietary software owned by others is akin to building a house without owning the land under it.

成立一个互联网公司基于其他企业提供的专有软件之上就如同建造一个房子于无产权的土地之上。

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The company markets this proprietary software through its wholly owned software subsidiary, Merak.

公司经由其完全所有的软件子公司，Merak，来销售该专用软件。

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The company asks users to download proprietary software, which verifies if a file was bought legally.

BBC: Redigi screengrab

Once a company has deployed a piece of proprietary technology say, an expensive package of enterprise software it is very costly to switch to another provider.

ECONOMIST: High-tech companies