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Microsoft Considers Pulling Out of China

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the no-windows-for-you dept.

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."

2 of 443 comments (clear)

  1. PR Stunt by CDPatten · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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...

  2. The real reason by doodlebumm · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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!