How Microsoft Beat Linux In China

Posted by kdawson on Saturday July 28, 2007 @08:30AM from the always-did-know-the-value-of-being-the-standard dept.

kripkenstein notes an analysis up on TechRepublic detailing how Microsoft beat Linux in China, and the consequences of that victory: "With the soon-to-be largest economy standardized on Windows desktops, desktop Linux does seem to have an uphill battle ahead of it." "Linux has turned out to be little more than a key bargaining chip in a high stakes game of commerce between the Chinese government and the world's largest software maker... The fact that... Linux failed to gain a major foothold in China is yet another blow to desktop Linux. After nearly eight years of being on the verge of a breakthrough, Linux seems more destined than ever to be a force in the server room but little more than a narrow niche and an anomaly on the desktop."

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Re:Why does it matter? by Viol8 · 2007-07-28 10:05 · Score: 1, Troll

"Before Windows (or DOS...) there was no high-volume, mainstream OS that ran on commodity hardware"

Never heard of CP/M then?

"The result was a huge amount of innovation in hardware devices and software that worked with Windows"

Oh please. The PC up until maybe 5-10 years ago was anything but innovative. The Amiga and Mac in the 80s were light years ahead of the PC in both hardware and software.

Bill Gates had a good business head but his software and OSes were shit and only recently is any quality starting to show and some would debate even that.