Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft & Linux Should Co-Exist In China
alabamarasta writes "In a recent report from China titled "Embattled
Linux fights back", it appears that Microsoft is just as embattled." From the article: "Citing an executive at Microsoft headquarters, Lu said Linux and Windows should co-exist. Microsoft in recent years has been struggling with an increasing number of security flaws on its Windows platforms while Linux is generally regarded as more secure. 'For users, openness increases the trustworthiness,' said Lu."
The Chinese market will be the decisive battle ground between Linux and Windows. Indeed, whoever manages to become the leader in that market will soon become the world leader. Why is that? Because the Chinese market has the potential to completely dwarf both the American and European markets. Once the Chinese market has matured, investors will think of American and the EU as they today think of Luxembourg and Jamaica.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Lu said Linux and Windows should co-exist (and then you put square brackets around what was inferred ... however this is what I am guessing was inferred) ... [so that Microsoft can get its foot in the door, however MS still doesn't care about Linux.]
Not every relationship is mutually beneficial. Parsitic relationships are valid relationships too. That's what business has to do to get the foot in the door whether it be Microsoft or somebody else.
Microsoft have been incredibly slow to realise that Windows can always go back to being what it was when it first got really successful at version 3.1, a GUI. Most people don't know what an OS even is, and wouldn't be aware of any difference (except increased stablility) if what they bought from Microsoft was a GUI for Linux instead of an actual operating system with GUI built in. Taking this approach (albeit with a Unix core) hasn't hurt Apple's OSX.
AS soon as Microsoft realise this, they can cut their development costs massively, and keep the same sales figures. I have no idea why their shareholders are not demanding this already!
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
IMO, it is currently very difficult to make a profit selling software (or indeed anything distributed digitally) in the Chinese market. Protections against illicit copying (which is rampant) are rarely enforced, and black-market copies are ubiquitious (this goes for Windows, DVDs, music CDs, other software titles). As China evolves these protections will have to be developed and enforced; they'll need them to protect their own content-creators, not just foreign ones. Only then will it make sense for Microsoft to aggressively pursue the Chinese market. Until then, "co-existing" with Linux is the smart strategy to adopt.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
Only in China.
The 2003 Chinese directive that government ministries must use exclusively locally developed or open source software was not just based on perceived better code quality or cost. The Chinese authorities at the time (and probably still now) were very concerned about possible backdoors for US security agencies in US closed source products. IMHO, their concerns have some merit. A Google search for "Lew Giles" is interesting.
It sure looks as if Microsoft is faced with a lose-lose in China and most likely the other major developing powers. Essentially it boils down to the fact that those powers use piracy as a political tool. The argument is really "Let us use Windows on a pirated basis, or at least a token-cost basis, until our economies are stronger otherwise we will take up Linux en masse and you will lose this huge market forever." What is left unsaid is that as soon as their economies are stronger, these powers will take up Linux or something else en masse anyway. They are never going to make themselves dependent on a US corporation. In the meantime, Microsoft is left doing darn near give-away deals (as in Indonesia) or issuing dinky cutdown editions for these markets that fool no one.
Perhaps what we are really seeing is the beginning of a Microsoft withdrawal from swathes of the world that will accelerate in the years ahead. Microsoft's bastions are North America and Europe. The colony in China turned out to an expensive venture that led nowhere. The locals had other plans. They decided to produce not merely their own software but their own computers too.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
5 years ago this was true... Then, nobody cared about Linux because Windows was 'free'. With the help of the US Government, Microsoft pressured China to start enforcing copyrights. Suddenly Windows isn't free anymore, and now China is running Linux.
So what is the solution to their "problem"? Are they going to ban open source software because it drives profit making companies into the ground?
The solution to their problem is the same approach that I usually propose to all government IT spending: when assessing the options available for any project, an equal but opposite factor to the cost of the project to the government should be the tangible benefit that will be derived by the local economy.
So, for instance, say we need to equip a department with a file server and twenty workstations, and get a support contract to ensure that they're kept operating. We have a company that's offering to do it with Windows, and will charge $15,000. We have a company that's offering to do it with Linux for $16,000. Both companies are local small businesses. Which one is the best deal for the government? Clearly the Linux company, because they will be keeping a larger volume of the cash. In the case of money that goes to MS, they will have to consider whether it will cause MS to employ more people in their region (unlikely) and what the benefit to MS shareholders in their region will be (small).