Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Considers Pulling Out of China
icefaerie writes to let us know that a senior executive for Microsoft has said the firm could pull out of non-democratic countries such as China. From the article: "Fred Tipson, senior policy counsel for the computer giant, said concerns over the repressive regime might force it to reconsider its business in China. 'Things are getting bad... and perhaps we have to look again at our presence there,' he told a conference in Athens."
s/non-democratic countries/countries where piracy is rampant/
Let's hear their opinion. And why stop there? What about other countries who support terrorism, for instance. Are they going to relocate to Canada?
When Microsoft leads the way in business ethics ahead of a company with a motto of "Don't be evil", I know it's time ot look for aerial pork.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
M$ is a commercial entity. If they decide to pull out of a market there must be an other reason then the politics stated above.
My guess: M$ cannot sue chinese citizens if they use an illegal copy.
Microsoft, when will you learn? Pulling out is NOT a reliable precaution. It's almost as bad as counting business cycles.
China would be forced to switch to Linux. Then, when China takes over the world, Linux will be spread by force. Excellent, excellent.
Maybe it has something to do with the fact nobody buys their legit software over there. Hell let's make ourselves look like the good guy and claim we're supporting democracy!
Will Linux pull out of repressive govts or will it stay?
For a company with business practicess like MSFT this has got to be some kind of PR stunt
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
Seriously though (and no, I don't mean to flame...) this is a good step. If more leading companies do this then maybe some sort of pressure can be applied. Unfortunately, if this doesn't apply to other large firms (i.e. Google) then this may be a huge market loss for Microsoft.
If Microsoft moves by itself, it opens up a huge consumer market to alternatives like Linux on the desktop and solidifies Google as a market leader in the webspace. People may argue that this is good (more Linux adoption etc) but is this s logical price?
Seems to me as though this is more talk to see what others reaction will be. I can't see Microsoft pulling out of such a huge market leaving it open to others with different principles.
Everyone who thinks this won't happen, mod me up.
Thank you.
Will code a sig generator for food
They are just looking for some leverage to influence China to update its anti piracy laws.
Really, I don't know why any US companies can do business with China. China does terrible, horrible things to their people. We're talking on par with Cuba, Iraq, and many rogue African and S. American countries. Yet for some reason we seem to turn a blind eye to it. I've never understood it. I'm sure it's all political because the US couldn't survive as a country without China. It's easy to say no to cuba, it's much more difficult to say no to a country which supplies over 90% of our furniture and large chunks of our circuit boards.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
For stories like this, perhaps the Gates pic should not have the borg hardware. De-assimilation, you know.
Where were you when the voynix came?
now that Chinese labor unions are infiltrating foreign businesses it's probably time to move to another more business friendly nation.
sure they care, bet it's about anti piracy laws
I'm sure he means closing development centers in China (if at all).
I don't think they will stop selling. If they make Office and Windows for Taiwan (and they make it for smaller markets too), then what will stop them to sell in China?
They can stop fighting piracy in China and just see any revenue there as a gift. I'm sure there are people that will buy it, at least foreign companies operating in China.
I'm usually on the other side defending MS, but this is clearly just a PR stunt. No company, including the slashdotter's holy Google & Apple, would pass up the chance to get at $1billion+ people. The chinese economy is just begining to ramp up, and they LOVE technology and the internet.
I suspect they are just trying to get some good press...
If Microsoft does this, it will be for some other reason. I have a really hard time believing MS execs could get a rationale like "We're pulling out of this massive massive massive but largely untapped market because our bleeding hearts tell us to" past the shareholders.
My money's on protecting their IP - not just piracy, as others have mentioned, but concerns about stuff like components of it being reverse engineered and incorporated into competing products.
What with the suspension of Habeas Corpus and Posse Comitatus in the last few months, I'd like to know when they are going to be pulling their business out of the US. Quite frankly, things are "getting bad" here to, and a much more alarming pace than China even. Hell, China has IMPROVED since the 80's, which the same can't be said of terror-dominated U.S.A.
China can obviously liberate itself... No reason for your children to die there...
with $40 billion in the bank.
I'm not knocking Microsoft here. I'm just saying it's easier.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
"Your Honor, my client Microsoft seeks to cancel these contracts because we object to China's
- lying
- unfair practices
- unprincipled use of its economic potential
- painfully slow turnaround time for patching bugs
Sorry, Your Honour... We can strike that last one from the record."
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
That'll teach those thieving Chinamen to not pirate Microsoft products!
Seriously... what does China have to lose by Microsoft pulling out? It's not like they're strictly necessary to them... or even helpful...
Can we sign up the United States for that list too?
Really, I don't know why any US companies can do business with China.
Initially, greed. For those competing against them, necessity.
China does terrible, horrible things to their people. We're talking on par with Cuba, Iraq, and many rogue African and S. American countries. Yet for some reason we seem to turn a blind eye to it. I've never understood it.
Because there is no immediately visible consequence to saving 50% on items made in China versus elsewhere apart from the immediate savings to that person. The decision for one person not to makes no difference. It is the decision of many people that creates the market.
It could be stopped, and pressure applied, if people voted for representatives to create laws to apply some sort of penalty for buying from such regimes. No such laws have been created. Says a lot about the representatives and the people voting for them, doesn't it?
It would be irresponsible to their shareholders to give up on a market of a billion people. From TFA, Cisco too.
It's simply good PR posturing, that's all.
So I wonder what MS are trying to put pressure on China to do?
They're a business, pulling out of China is bad business. They're bluffing. I wonder what they're trying to win. *yawn*
Score:-1, Funny
I am reading slashdot from China which censors the BBC web site. I am very interested in this article. Can someone please include it so I (and maybe some others) can read it from China. In addition, I would really like to know the
best way to get around this censorship on my Linux system. Thanks!
If MS pulls out of China, the PRC will simply declare (or act as though) copyright and trademark don't apply to companies that pull out. So each time MS releases a patch or new OS or new version of Office, someone will crack it right away for Chinese consumption.
I don't really see how MS has much leverage here. MS could maybe have the U.S. govt. go to bat for them, but we're in such debt and military over-extension right now, and have so few friends around the world, that we're not in a particularly strong negotiating position vs. China.
Actually, just because they make software for Taiwan does not mean the same software will work in the PRC. The two entities (the US does not recognize Taiwan as a separate country) use different character sets. Taiwan and most Chinese-language nations use the traditional character set which has developed over thousands of years. The PRC and Singapore use what is called the "Simplified" character set which was developed in the PRC to help improve literacy rates by simplifying may of the more complex characters by reducing the number of strokes (lines/marks) needed to write them. I've seen characters that have been reduced from over 20 strokes to fewer than ten.
Most younger Chinese in the mainland and Singapore cannot read the traditional characters, so the software would be difficult to understand at best, and useless at worst.
I do not know if Singapore is a significant enough market for Micro$oft to continue producing a Simplified Character set version of their software.
This is why the language codes zh-CN and zh-TW exist. The official language used in both is essentially the same other than some regional variations, such as different words for "taxi" and different interpretations of "ai4ren2" (Literally "love person". On the mainland it means "spouse", in Taiwan it means "lover" and implies an extra-marital affair.) (Sorry -- no Chinese characters -- I can't be sure everyone will be able to see them.)
I hope Microsoft and other large corporations are legitimately considering measures like this since I feel something needs to be done. If the Chinese government's repression of its peoples' rights were slowly lessoning over time I'd say let time sort the issue out; however, to me it seems things are just getting worse over there as technology enables the government to assert more control over its people. I do think if the government sees that in order for their country to continue its relatively free world trade they will slowly start giving it's people more rights to keep trade/money flowing. Since big governments don't seem to have the guts to cut off China, I'd hope companies would.
That said my guess is that this article could simply be a sympathy piece put out by Microsoft. Talk is cheap. Corporations need to do something, not talk about it to make people like them more.
Hobby Robotics
They'll just move on to Linux... and not have to spend billions of dollars on the "Microsoft Tax".
Besides, the Chinese government won't have to worry about malicious code coming from an American company (not that they did anyways since I doubt there's anything to fear).
This could mean so many things really.
First of all there is the crazy piracy which costs them huge dollars and causes trouble since the pirated windows spread virii like crazy. Also there so much trouble enforcing contracts. When I was running my IT business people would constantly try to renegotiate the price AFTER the project was completed. A not small amount of time people would just not be able to pay. Forgot about taking them to court.
Then legally you can't really know if you are breaking the law or not half the time. Usually if you are breaking the law come down to who you know. So it's hard for them to make project plans and then suddenly the gov't tells them they can't do something (after they spent millions).
I know a guy working on a TV movie in China. They wrote this super tame script and had it checked by the gov't censor board. Then after spending several million dollars and months of effort the gov't decided they couldn't sell the movie, because it showed foreigners beating out local Chinese people. So this makes it hard to commit the big bucks in China, you get nervous that the gov't will suddenly make some arbitrary change and put you out of business.
Yeah, it's sort of like this here in the US (and lately our gov't been closing the gap) but it's much much worse in China. Or maybe the foriegners all get the 'special' treatment, who knows? At least that is my experience, and I lived in China (all over) for a couple of years, and I have western friends there living in china as long as 12 years.
So there might not be totally humanitarian reasons for this, although there certainly could be really bad stuff here that even MS doesn't want to be associated with.
Peace, or Not?
i'm no fan of microsoft but if they are really thinking about pulling out of china because of the reasons stated in this article, then more power to them. i'll applaud their social and human rights responsiblity. but since this is microsoft, i questions their real motives......
"Things are getting bad... and perhaps we have to look again at our presence there," he told a conference in Athens.
"We have to decide if the persecuting of bloggers reaches a point that it's unacceptable to do business there."
"We try to define those levels and the trends are not good there at the moment. It's a moving target."
Sounds like pretty good reason. MS has to supply info to Chinese government on who their bloggers are, and they get arrested. Why should then MS be attacked for thinking about calling it quits until such prosecutions stop?
Who cares?
Microsoft aren't making any money out of China what with rampant copying. But the copying won't stop if they pull out. The Chinese will just make copies of independently-imported Microsoft software, and it'll be Business As Usual.
There might be a small gain for Open Source, but it's kind of doubtful. "Not having to pay for it" isn't much of an advantage when you don't have to pay for anything else either.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Why do the editors abuse this category so? What does this have to do with my rights, let alone my rights online?
At least China doesn't persecute and mass-murder muslims. Way to go for the US if they ever want to be seen as "democratic" outside of their own borders. Go China, Go France!
USA is the main promoter of terrorism around the world. The only diffence is that it has a large army of mercenaries/patridiots. It'd be better then to Microsoft shut up and stop to be hypocrite like some Americans members at /. in the first place.
Hail, USA!
...the government owns Linux.
Red Flag Linux ( Linux)
Wikipedia:
"Hannibal's plans never work right. They just work." Amy/A-Team
Right like microsoft really give a crap about democratic rights, true they cannie do shit about piracy and might want to get some good publicity out of this, but from what I heard they make a good buck from stifling free speech by making software for the chinese government. Of course if slashdot cared about the chine workers democratic rights (which they don't) then they would not give MS any publicity and instead try and push the envelope of Open source to china. Forget blog your way to freedom, OPEN SOURCE your way to freedom and the selfsmug shet eating will follow!
http://goatse.cz/
There is no chance of MS doing this, would be commercial suicide in the long term and would have the shareholders gunning for the heads of the MS board on a platter
MS want something from China (probably better anti piracy laws/enforcement) and this is a a vague (and toothless) threat to try to get their way
is that the gov. is backing redflag Linux, while at the same time "borrowing" code from MS Window, that MS showed them some time ago. I only hope that China does not put it in Linux and taint the source.
Funny thing. I could see china wanting the entire west on Windows to make their life easy to attack us. The simple approach to doing that is to taint the Linux base and then point it out to American DOJ. Considering that the white house has pushed MS on govs for 6 years, they would almost certainly back it, and not question why the chinese are doing this.
When Google decides to create a censored google.cn, Slashdotters bend over backwards to toe the line and support Google's claims that doing business in China is kinda sorta less evil than ignoring them. Now that we have Microsoft actually looking to leave China, stating it is for the reasons that make us unhappy that Google is in China, and every post I've seen so far is trying to find the "real" reason.
Maybe Microsoft is being two-faced, maybe they're not. Regardless, how about holding them to the same standards as Google, or vice versa, for once?
Wouldn't it just be easier to wear a condom?
80% of chinese computers already run with pirated windows copies... go ahead - make it 100 ;)
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
Now if only we can get them to pull out of America. Or at least start using astroglide.
That's 3 lines I never want to see together again as long as I live.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Given the negative press Google got for entering China, I am curious to see if it'll produce positive press for Microsoft.
Gaahahaha... just kidding...
Still though, some things to consider:
- they say prosecution of bloggers can get bad enough so they can't provide services there: why though?
- they say they don't plan filtering or selling products specifically to China: still though, short of Office and Windows, all their products target more specific crowds. I'm not sure why targeting a potentially huge market in China is any different.
I'm calling it a bluff for now, apparently they are letting those "threats" out to achieve a specific political purpose. What it is, I don't have enough information to know.
So as an added benefit the chinese don't have to take the crappy EULA/DRM etc from M$ and can just all switch to to the official Red Flag Linux. A win for Linux and the people's rights. On another note, all those ranting about how business has no morals and how its all about the money. You're right. But how about the morals for the Government. It's not like the foreign policy is setting a blindingly good example for the rest of the world to follow at the moment is it? Oh and by the way don't forget China pretty much owns the US at the moment. $1 Trillion in reserves. So there you have it, Suck it up, bitches....
Strange, but I thought that it was the other way around.
y .cfm?story_id=8038059 g ger_arrested/ l os
About Peace:
When I read the [1], I thought that the US is the repressive state. After invading in so many countries (3 in 5 years!) it seems to my that it is the most aggressive nation ever. Causing more than 650.000 fatalities in a war just for oil, it is something that even Hitler or Roman emperors haven't done. Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction, admitted Bush. Terrorism threat has increased, according to CIA. US had more fatalities in Iraq war rather in twin towers. For what? Did you really believe that Saddam could nuke the US? He couldn't even bomb troops sieging Baghdad. Were he able to create big terrorist acts like what Al Quaeda does? Oh, come on, he had no transactions with extremists and much much more terrorist activity is watched in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia than in any other country.
About Freedom of Speech:
Yeah, that's the most stupid thing I ever heard. Especially after 11/9 civil liberties are literally gone. No, it's not only what I've seen on "Fahrenheit 9/11".
About criminalization of bloggers:
I know that China runs after bloggers, but what happened here in Greece, it was unprecedent. A web directory maintainer was arrester [2] for LINKING to a blog bashing a nationalist tele-evangelist [3], who btw support that us greeks have come from space, were spread throughout the world, we made pyramids, and with the aid of Russia will conquer the world and restore the Bizantine Empire. Ah, also that centaurs have existed. Oh, I forgot that a bookstore owner has been arrested for selling a BANNED book of Mimis Androulakis that was considered offensive to church. Also books of hime were burned in public in Thessaloniki by local orthodox believers. Does this remind you of Medieval Times or to Nazi Germany? I also remember that US citizens referring through a link (but not by plain text) to mp3 sites were prosecuted, at a court win of RIAA.
In no other country a referrer to a censored book or site was arrested -- even in China (which btw, is far from being considered communist, time has passed sine Mao was in power), blogs are banned or even bloggers are arrested. But no site owner referring to them was punished. Are we really a democratic nation?
Microsoft just said that to blind people that accused it for cooperating with the Chinese Government for filtering the web. Try to be objective... I know that this is difficult. When you in US were watching your missiles hitting Belgrad and shouted out WOWs, we were seeing human parts of babies thrown apart. I personally cannot forget one video transmitted by the greek public channel NET showing a hand of a baby lying to the scene of bombardment of a train in Yugoslavia. Did you see such images or you just enjoy Rambo killing thousands of evil enemies defending freedom fighters (=afgans, ironically).
[1] http://www.economist.com/world/africa/displaystor
[2] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/30/greek_blo
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimosthenis_Liakopou
I first thought, Bill is just trying to apply the ancient chinese philosophy of the Tao Te Ching: "The way that advances appears to retreat."
and
"In conflict it is better to be receptive than aggressive, better to retreat a foot than advance an inch."
But wait a minute, the Tao Te Ching also says:
"A good planner doesn't have to scheme."
and
"The sage doesn't hoard."
Ah, well... We can take solace in a quote from the new updated open source translation:
"The Linux programmer acts without effort and teaches by quiet example. He accepts things as they come, creates without possessing, nourishes without demanding, accomplishes without taking credit."
and
"Amass possessions, establish positions, display your pride: Soon enough Linux drives you to your knees."
AMEN to the parent poster, and I would also now like to take a moment to tell a bit of Truth to the Chinease people. There are a LOT of us on the western world who believe the Word of God and know what it says about Chinease, as well as Japanese, africans and others as well. There is a DAY that is coming where all Chinease will get what is coming to them, you may mock us if you wish but all true Americans know that this is what will happen in the end, we know this because we still hold true to the morals of the man who died on the cross to protect the American way of life.
This much I know, soon comes the day that the seventh seal opens and the trumpet sounds, and all will acknowledge on bended knee that Christ is King. And that will be the END of the CHINEASE PEOPLE.
-
(Google's Moto: Don't Be Evil)
Dominant Meme
Waaaaahoooo there, back up there kiddos. Just kidding.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Much and all as I dislike the Chinese regime, I'm not sure that Microsoft refusing to do business with them would make a lick of difference. While it's wrong for Western countries to directly assist the regime in oppressing its opponents, pulling out because of a general objection to the regime is probably a rather pointless gesture. In any case, the best way to help China reach something more closely approximating a liberal democracy is probably to continue cooperating with them to make the place richer. While it's not guaranteed, and there are functioning poor democracies (India and Indonesia are reasonably democratic and poor), sooner or later a comfortable middle class is probably going to start demanding more say in the way China is run.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Don't they know that "pulling out" isn't a valid form of contraception?
You mean that micro$ defines democracy as a place where they can buy or blackmail the politico to violate teh will of the people. To monopolies like micro$, the people of a country count for nothing. They do not care. They do not have to care. They are the real 'citizens' and not the people of the victimized country. They probably found out that the new Chairman, Hu, is a man of his country and not buyable with microsoft money. Micro$$$$$ also found out that China's commitment to Linux is real, and that they would not abandon their own national linux distribution, Red Flag Linux, for any money or any blackmail (world trade pressures, etc). Look for the other shoes to drop soon, like complaints by RIAA and MPAA. Nope, no twelve years old girls and 89 year old grandmothers to be tortured, killed by skinning them alive for their collagen to please the likes of the litigation and torture and proxy murder puppeteers of right wing religious crusadin corporate america. China is for Chinese and evidently micro$ found some place with just as much backbone as it.....maybe more. Wait til the Chinese start exporting their product and the new 'opium wars' begin! Read the history of the Opium Wars in China in the 1800's to find out the true and chilling meaning of this. These CDs and DVDs are
the opium of the 21at century, the true and present opium of people addicted to television and music players as the true statement of sloth and bankruptcy of their own individual souls. Politicians WANT people to never leave this addiction, for then they may decide to emulate Edwin Markham's "Man With The Hoe" and it will be
1917 and Bolshevism all over again. So important do the oligarchs of the America consider this that their bought and paid for sock puppets in government have given away millions of American jobs just to protect these two industries that produce no real product. Intellectual property is at true heart of this and is the way that also jobs can be exported to slave factories whose products outcompete domestic goods to the detriment of every American. It stands only if one principle is never violated by labor exploited country....that the slave labor country will never ever nationalize in any way the 'intellectual property' in hardware, software, and media that monopolists have exported there unethically (really illegaly). For at that moment the whole house of cards built by the monopolistes will crumble and vanish in an instant, as a candle in the wind. When the Chinese deem themselves strong enough, at a certain moment on a day certain they will unleash this ultimate terror of the monopolist controlled world and trillions of dollars of blue sky dollars will vanish with it. Just how many divisions has God, as Stalin once said? and when will the idealogical descendants of Mao Tse Tung decide to make of the whole world an omelet? And who will be the 'eggs' broken?
I would certainly be happy to see this happen. America is lead by sniveling cowards who stand by and watch while the world's most vile regimes crack down harder and harder on dissent, much less freedom, so it would be a boon to people around the world if American business would slap China (and other such regimes) with the sort of sanctions that our spineless leadership does not.
In a general sense, boycotts are probably about half as effective as positive alternatives, In this case, it's even less. I mean, how on earth could someone effectively focus a "made in China" boycott so as to impact any specific company's bottom line in a significant way?
It's hard to make a sound byte out of "avoid contributing to companies that support repressive regimes who commit nasty human rights abuses." On the other hand, fair trade coffee is a *great* example of the positive alternative strategy. It's easy to say, easy to remember, easy to label, and people feel good about buying it. Even more important, though, is that you don't need to saturate consumers with pamphlets and TV spots for them to learn about the issue. They can discover it *and* start contributing to its solution right at the supermarket or coffeehouse checkout counter.
Unfortunately, there are a slew of strategic and ethical conundrums involved with applying this tactic to China. Ignoring those for a moment though, the marketing analogue for "free trade coffee" in this case might be something like a "freely produced goods" certification, signifying that a product originates entirely from the labor of free peoples. Now, let the haggling over the definition of "free peoples" begin!
Pi Ran Out
Don't forget the microsoft branded hardware being made in..... China.
Either said MS Exec is posturing (likely) or the individual is having a morality attack. If it's the latter, then I'd say his career is not looking so good at Microsoft.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Having worked for Microsoft in Redmond + China for 2 years, this is complete nonsense. Anyone who has worked at a large company will know that titles such as "senior policy counsel" mean nothing. Especially for something as strategic as China, if it doesn't come from Ballmer or Gates, it doesn't mean anything. The current China GM/VP is Tim Chen and he was personally hired by Ballmer + Gates. China represents very little of Microsoft's revenue today, but it's one of the top 5 long term bets for the company. This was taken completely out of context by the reporter, and I know that the Redmond/Beijing PR + business teams are fratically trying to repair the damage that this statement will cause with Chinese customers and government officials. The "senior policy counsel" won't be fired, but he'll be far more careful when speaking in public...
Do it. Please, do it! And while you're at it... leave ALL markets. No one will miss you and the world is a better off without your rotten stink. Donate your ill gotten money and die.
All labor unions in China are wings of the communist party, and their primary function is to prevent workers from organizing in any form outside the direct control of the communist party, or trying to gain any sort of political power. The labor unions are more about organizing social outings than advocating for worker.
/ 1016china.htm2 3/PM200411231.html (audio story)
http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/inequal/labor
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2004/11/
Walmart is more than happy to have the Chinese brand of labor unions in its stores.
Indeed. Microsoft would sell chemical warfare agents if they could.
Cruelties of the "Happily Shrieking Monkey" or whatever else China's
"leadership" translates to in our language are certainly not at the
bottom of this.
Oh, great. More jobs going overseas.
[This time next week we can only hope to see how wrong that statement is.]
The ONLY reason Microsoft is doing this is to try and make themselves look less "evil" compared to the flap with Google working within the constructs of the Chinese government's rules (ie. censoring). If Google weren't around or weren't as successful as it is, any reasonable person knows that Microsoft would NEVER pull out of anyplace where they even get the slightest revenue. Even if it were a factory using .Net and SQL server to keep a database of how many babies they've cooked and served to an oppressive regime's administration. Like the Bush administration. Ooops! Did I say that out loud?!! In other words, nothing to see here, move along.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
And me, too!
Not that I'm stating an opinion either way, I just think I've got as good a reason as the parent, or most posts, for that matter.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
If they say they will pull out, it is more that they are going to put pressure on the Chinese (and other governments) to crack down on piracy. If the governments think that they will be unable to easily get what they want from Microsoft, maybe they will crack down on the pirates.
Personally I hope it backfires and China ends up with 100,000,000 computers running Linux. I wonder how that would affect the perceived "market share" held by Microsoft. And think of all the applications that would be made available on Linux. Sweet!
I could easily think of a catchy name if that is all it took. How about HumanTrade? Eh, the copyright police might go after that, but thinking of a catchy way of advertising is not the roadblock. There are really two roadblocks. First, there is indeed a shortage of stable nations with cheap labor that have a human form of government. Eastern Europe is about as close as we can get right now. Africa has cheap labor, but most of the governments are no kinder then China's.
The bigger issue is that it takes people actually caring. If people really cared for the humanitarian situation in China as much as they did for the rain forest or the labor conditions used to get coffee, you might see change. For better or for worse though, people don't see China as being "that bad". Some also argue that a better way of helping China to join the world and be more humane to its people is through rising their standard of living and encouraging trade.
Honestly, the idea that some sort of sanctions (either through boycott or political action) against China producing any sort of change is just a theory. It might indeed lead to a better China, or it might lead to clamp down on China. We really don't know the answer. Would a China that we try and strangle with sanction look more like the USSR and eventually fold, or would it look more like a North Korea that becomes wildly dangerous and a threat to global security?
I simply don't have an answer. I personally would like to see people at least selectively boycott companies that deal in China. I might not hold it against Google for following the law and self censoring or for Anheuser-Bush for brewing beer there (though, I do boycott Anheuser-Bush for brewing shitty beer), but I might hold it against Cisco for helping China build their Great Fire Wall and taking an active role in oppression.
What if Bill Gates went to each member of the ruling politburo or whatever they call it, and offered each one a large sum of money. Condition? Strict piracy laws and adoption and enforcement of the same Bill of Rights in the US Constitution. Half now. Half on successful compliance within one year. He's the only man in the world who might be able to pull this off. I mean, it wasn't unheard of for African slaves in the pre-Civil War US to have their freedom bought by wealthy northern Abolitionists. Why not buy freedom for a whole country? In the end, don't most despots just want palaces and hundreds of shoes for their wives anyway?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Couldn't happen to a nicer country.
Couldn't happen to a nicer company.
I hope they both find the happiness they deserve.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
and the rest of DGenerationX
a man, a plan, a canal, panama
pulling out isn't a reliable method, the damage could already be done.
Now China will become vastly more advanced
since they will not be held back by windows.
yes, like the USA where I write this.
For Sale: Corporate Campus
Moving corporate headquarters to a democratic country. Selling 'Borg' cube-shaped buildings in Redmond Washington. Priced to move, but will accept Google stock.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Are you sure of that? They have mass-murdered other religious groups, such as the Falung Gong, Tibetan Buddists, and Christians. If they haven't been killing off Muslims or putting them in concentration camps, it is only because there aren't enough of them in China to be worth the effort.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
This gives yet another reason not to get locked in to any proprietary products...
If microsoft can pull out of one country, they can pull out of another. If all your data is locked in to their formats, and they stop selling their products in your country, your pretty screwed!
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
"anyone who would not or could not pay for it can steal it"
Theft is an entirely new subject. We were talking about unauthorized duplication, not theft. You went way off topic, so it is hard to figure out what you are trying to say.
" Write the text of the law that allows this usage for those who could or would not pay otherwise."
I was not attempting to justify the duplication or ask for a change in the law. I was just pointing out the fact of the very nebulous connection between instances of unauthorized duplication and actual financial loss to the software comapany. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it does not. An excellent example of where it happens is when some junior high kid gets an illicit copy of $800 Autocad on his hard disk. $0 goes to the software company, right? Now, imagine if this kid was not able to get this copy. He doesn't have the money to buy one, so he's going to do without. $0 goes to the software company. Thus, you have no difference in the software company's revenues due to this act of "piracy.". This is what happens in the real world, not "my world."
Where were you when the voynix came?
The US must not allow Microsoft to pull out of China.
If Microsoft pulled out of China:
To preserve American competitiveness, we have to screw China by ensuring that Microsoft is dominant there. Anything else would leave the playing field tilted against us.
Microsoft gives in to pirates? Bill Gates must not be in control.
Will the rampant piracy, it makes me wonder if Microsoft could make money there.
Have you read my journal today?
Sounds like they are planning on raising their prices in China.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
"In your world, anyone who would not or could not pay for it can steal it"
I decided to address that. If they actually did steal it (say, by breaking into a software store or by hijacking a truck), there possibly be a financial loss to the software publisher, depending on insurance and who actually owns the software at the time of theft. In the case of the software store, the loss of money is almost certainly borne by the retailer, and the software publisher won't take a hit. The most sure way for theft to impact the publisher's bottom line would be if someone stole the software boxes from the publisher's own warehouse.
(None of which has anything to do with duplication of content on media, which does not involve theft in any way).
Where were you when the voynix came?
Maybe it is just a PR stunt, or maybe they really are starting to think that doing business in oppressive countries isn't really a profitable proposition after all. Moralism aside, it is probably difficult to make money in any country where the rule of law is not consistently respected. The problem of piracy is well known in China. But there is also the problem of an increasingly oppressive government that wants to restrict the access their citizens have to information and the tools to share that information with others. That could bring regulations and a capriciousness, that makes doing business there more difficult and unpredictable than it is worth. And there is always the specter of negative press back home with the potential to affect the bottom line. Maybe adding all of this up dispelled the illusion of huge profits to be made in China.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
How many political prisoners are too many? 1? 10? 100? thousands? At what point do you remember where you left your soul? PRC runs political slave labor camps, and now MS is thinking maybe they should have some ethical standards? What a bunch of useful idiots. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laogai Although, you don't really need to hit that link, you just need to know that the "see also" section includes "gulag". http://www.laogai.org/news/index.php
I thought Microsoft *was* an undemocratic country...
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
...China Not Pregnant
http://www.hannibal.net/twain/works/person_in_dark ness_1901/
i tic_1901/appendixa.shtml
e rsectution_1807/disgraceperseofaboy.shtml
h tm
http://www.hannibal.net/twain/works/missionary_cr
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/Kipling.html
http://www.hannibal.net/twain/works/disgraceful_p
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Tigers
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/brochures/72-38/72-38.
http://www.tribo.org/nanking/
KFG
things are looking bad there..
Of course! Does this come as a surprise? If western companies are practising slavery in China no wonder things are looking bad.
pulling out of the US as well. :)
Looks like they cant turn a profit there. They are a corporation, its all about bottom line.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Nice set of links, but they had nothing to do with the situation in China in the year 1800 (which is 150 years prior to when Mao conquered the place). That was the time period you told us to look at! What does Japan's rape of Nanking and a link to an air combat site have to do with 1800? Very little.
As an aside, the current Chinese government sure sounds odd when it complains about Japan raping Nanking, when this government happened to to the same thing many times over to Chinese citizens as well (30,000,000+ killed inside actual Chinese borders, not counting Tibet). Yes, Japan should be apologizing, but what of China's Communist Party? How is it bad for Japan to invade and rape Nanking and for China to invade and rape Tibet? At least Japan eventually returned to owns own borders. China has yet to end the occupation of Tibet.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I don't think you want Linux to be associated with China as your "marketing plan" to get people to switch.
Perception is not always the same as reality. So to the layman, if Linux = China - he'll stay away because he doesn't want a "Chinese" version of Windows.
Sad, but this is the level of understanding you are dealing with.
Nope, no sig
I like pulling out too. cuming all over her tits or face is so much hotter
Consumers are people who buy things, not copy it from their friends.
Sounds more like the Chinese want open source (or at least some sort of free software, not nessesarily "Free"), but don't know what it is. Maybe someone should point them to sourceforge, freshmeat.net and kernel.org, then again their government probably blocked those sites out...
with 'the best government money can buy'?
Will they also pull out of the tyrannical regimes as US, UK? anyway, they were ranked below place 20 in the internet privacy survey... hopefully that will boost the linux use in China. Don't forget the 2nd bank moved to redflag and many other gov. entities are doing the same.
Mod parent +1 Commonsense.
Or am I worrying too much about technicalities here?
The Independent: Reverend Spooner Arrested in Friar Tuck Incident - ISIHAC, Historical Headlines
that doing business with ruthless, amoral, blood-thirsty Communists isn't working out well? Hmm, didn't see that coming 8^}
Microsoft: Stop getting our product for free! China: Or else what? Microsoft: Or we'll stop trying to sell it to you! China: Umm...
This nonsensical idea some US people have that companies should persue profits no matter what is complete nonsense.
If the company stablish as a guiding operational principle not to deal with dictatorships there is nothing to stop them doing exactly that.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I'm chinese. This news must be a joke. There is no way MS will be pulling out of here.
They are profiting, making huge money,expanding their business, damn,with helps of every chinese computer-related companies. In china,sorry to say, it's the idea of freaking Open Source the chinese business world dont want, never the lovely microsoft. Because every chinese is crazy to making money! Why pulling out? you must be kidding!
Since the government here has been cracking down those pirated software (very)seriously while MS's anti-piracy technologies(such like that geniune validation program) catching up the phase. Pirating MS products will be getting harder and harder. Meanwhile non-geek consumers who just want to have fun with the internet(the majority)will buy everything a salesman recommends, including genuine Windows and all kinds of widgets(even perfume for the cd convers). Besides there is already a mandatory order to have all boxed computer shipped with a legit OS, most of them are windows. More people getting to buy boxed/branded computer, the market for self-assembled machines is shrinking considerablely. so people all can see here microsoft is becoming fat . and i wont understand why the loved child will ever have the throught of moving out.
Here in china, a great deal of the total exports comes from eletronics, things like ditital comera, flash disk, mp3 player, pc cam, and all kinds of computer toys are made for a bigger toy computer that has a windows to run them all, not something like linux which took me years learning basic english, system architecture, monsterous C programing , to master. So the only reason MS to pull put must be Radmond was hit by a north korea's newly-made bomb. except that, nothing makes sense.
China, in fact, is very fragile.
This seems more like an empty threat to try and blackmail the Chinese government into stopping people from using genuine copies of Windows that were not produced by Microsoft ('pirated' by their definition). There is little difference in the level of real democracy in the United States and China.
I wonder if they will pull out of the United States - there is no way that it can be called a democracy. At least in China, the government considers the interests of its people. The United States seems to have become a rather nasty corporately run dictatorship with none of the major two corporate parties representing a real choice.
I can't imagine that Microsoft would ever sacrifice the massive potential revenues in the name of some concept like 'democracy', that usually amounts to little more than propaganda against political opponents of American abuses of power.
A couple of facts for the history-deprived Marxist wanna-be's:
No country in the world has ever completed the transition to Communism.
Communist-esque countries either have across-the-board low standards of living relative to Western countries (Cuba), or have liberalized and adopted some form of free-market capitalism (China). (Not that China has great standards of living, either.
For all the "flaws" in capitalism, it works. Rather well. And there is not one instance in history where Communism has. QED.
DATABASE WOW WOW
"If you'd asked Marx what would happen if a country in the condition of Russia in 1917 or post-War East Germany tried to establish a Communist state, he'd probably have been able to give you a pretty good idea."
Marx has to go on record as the worst thinker in history. His ideas were so disconnected with any sort of economic or human reality. The way Russia turned out is exactly what you would expect if you attempt to apply his ideas to the real world.
Where were you when the voynix came?
"For all the "flaws" in capitalism, it works. Rather well. And there is not one instance in history where Communism has. QED."
Communism works quite well. If you have the goals of concentrating the most power in the fewest hands of people, of negating all human rights, of maximizing poverty to the greatest extent possible, and of killing a significant proportion of the human population, communism has proven to be the best method. Bar none. Why else do a majority of megalomaniac and despotic human leaders turn to it first? Only Nazism can come close, but even that doesn't do as well as communism in some aspects (such as the goal of extreme impoverishment.)
Where were you when the voynix came?
There's a shareholder proposal about this stuff that gets voted on during their next annual meeting (Nov. 14th). There was a Seattle Times article about it last month.
In short, a few socially-conscious investors are pissed about the China blog incident and want MS to pull out. The board of directors have gone on record as being totally against the proposal, and past proposals like this (at MS and other even nastier companies) typically get less than 25% of the vote.
We're talking about a corporation. It exists to make a return for its owners, not to live an ethical, principled life like you and me. Fat chance that this Tipson guy can sway the board and the owners of the company to jump out of such a huge emerging market.
Err, that should be HumaneTrade. HumanTrade... well that doesn't sound like something nice.
It ain't Christmast in China yet.
'A lie if repeated often enough, becomes the truth.' - Goebbels
Don't they know the withdrawal method is unreliable? Hell, they could have little MS Bobs running all over China in no time if they're not careful.
I'm curious as to what your stand on Macedonia (the nation) was. The Greek hatred of this nation looks rather odd outside of Greece. The Greek government even tried to prevent it from using its actual name (a violation of the UN charter).
Where were you when the voynix came?
You saw the title.
" that is, if something has a value to the person you are taking it from, you are depriving them of that value by taking it."
Copyright infringement does not meet the requirements of "taking".
"my theft of services example: why can't I stay in a hotel room for free if noone else was going to use it anyway"
Excellent example of how it does NOT apply. In copyright infringement, there's no service to be stolen! Say someone writes a game. They've done their "service" right there. It's over and done. Now the game is distributed. No matter how many times it is copied (or not), the amount of work (service) done remains the same. You don't have a guy spending 76 hours to write a game who is then forced to work 1.5 hours each time the game is copied.
That's a big contrast with theft of services. That night in the hotel? The maid had to clean the room. The laundry staff washed your sticky sheets. There's a service there.
Where were you when the voynix came?
So with direct access to the source, the Chinese Government could put in about a dozen backdoors, blacklists and restrictions to spy on their citizens and prevent them from freely using their computers to communicate to the outside world. And forget about attempting to take them to court for violating the GPL.
Call me when they pull out of Singapore.
Aerobestiality?
Have we created a new perversion, right here on Slashdot?
They are just avoiding the eventual headline 'Amnisty International Sues Microsoft for Supplying Software to Chinese Slave Labor Camps'
I was thinking more along the lines of bangin a chunky intern on the company jet during a business trip on my wedding anniversary, but whatever flies your aeroplane I guess.
Hell, the only way my wife would ever find out is if she answered a question with "when pigs fly".
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
I don't think so.
Mr Pot - I'd like you to meet Mr Kettle...
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Ok so I'm a disgruntled ex-republican. (Independent since 2000!)
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
Then they should also pull out of Venezuela because of Chavez...pull out of the entire middle east, just because...Cuba because everyone else has... N Korea because they refuse to give up the N bomb...and the list continues...... NoMorePoints.com
This has to be a joke - right?
On your own evidence you had difficulty living and making money in China
Now you have a consultancy helping others?
Give us a break!
Although I am no great lover of the Chinese government, surely things are better now than twenty or even ten years ago?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
In the corporate world, they do not differentiate those two terms much. A consumer is a person who buys something then consumes it. A customer is a person who will buy something in the future. Someone who doesn't buy something, but consumes it anyway is usually referred to as a "pirate", "leech", "theif", "i'll pay you tommorrow guy", or "one of those open source hippies" Crap like that.
"A consumer is a person who buys something then consumes it"
There is now a gap between the term "consumer" and the idea "one who consumes". Media/content is simply not consumed, unless it is some expiring pay-per-use program. See the definition: there's no devouring, destroying, or expending going on.
"Someone who doesn't buy something, but consumes it anyway is usually referred to as a "pirate", "leech", "theif", "i'll pay you tommorrow guy", or "one of those open source hippies"
Actually.... those leeches neither by nor consume.
Where were you when the voynix came?
You did not spell "basically" in the correct fashion. The word "Nazi" should be capitalized. Your second sentence should have started with "I am expecting" not the "me expecting". Maybe later I will link to the definitions of those three words.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Microsoft is pulling out of China.
A frustrated China could not be reached for comment.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
"Ah! That explains why I saw your stuff on the sidewalk."
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.