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China Launches Antitrust Probe Vs. Microsoft
snydeq writes "China has launched an investigation into whether Microsoft unfairly dominates its software market, according to a state media report. A working committee of China's State Intellectual Property Office is investigating whether Microsoft engaged in discriminatory pricing and will also look at Microsoft's practice of bundling other software programs within its Windows operating system, according to the report. The probe is part of a greater sweep of operating systems and other software developed by multinational companies that cost much more in China than in the U.S. 'On the one hand, global software firms, taking advantage of their monopoly position, set unreasonably high prices for genuine software while on the other hand, they criticise Chinese for poor copyright awareness. This is abnormal,' a source said."
I don't think you can call it a monopoly if all the companies software in your country is pirated.
"Thank you for using Stop-n-Drop, America's favorite suicide booth since 2008"
Next I hope is an antitrust probe of the Chinese government in business.
Don't read too much into the story. All it means is one more high party official is looking to get his share of payments to the top officials in China. Once a few million $ are safely handed over, the probe will be frozen, to be thawed only during the negotiations of the next payment.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
In other words, China is jumping on the bandwagon of countries that is playing the "Sue Microsoft Lottery" to get some extra cash. I mean, I don't like Microsoft's products, particularly their operating systems, because I think they've completely lost touch with what a computer is supposed to do, but when it comes down to it, it's our fault, not Microsoft's, that their junk software is so ingrained in the entire computing industry. We are the ones who vote with our dollars, and so, if you don't like Microsoft, or their software doesn't get the job done for you, then don't pay them your money. But don't wine and complain about them either. And certainly don't play the Microsoft lottery. That's ridiculous.
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
No they criticize China because you are a bunch of pirating communist scum. As to price manipulation being a bad thing... from a communist country that has practiced both price controls and currency manipulation. Not to mention the closed market.... This is just a chance for China to shake MS down.
Except for the part where they proclaim to be.
China is being heavily leant upon by the US and its stooges to do something about their prevailing culture of piracy - you know, the great DVD markets of Hong Kong and Shanghai where every film is available a month before it reaches the cinema, all that stuff. It's all to do with international trade agreements; China gets to make more money selling abroad if they stop ripping off Hollywood and Silicon Valley.
Hitherto China has been happily ignoring Microsoft's monopoly by simply pirating everything. If they're going to go legit then they're going to make damn sure they don't end up paying through the nose for it, so they're raising the same monopoly issue that the US and the EU have done. After all, if China is going to play fair, then so must Microsoft.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
You're totally right. They aren't communist. What they are is fascist.
"Anti-individualistic, the fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only insofar as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal will of man as a historic entity.... The fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value.... Fascism is therefore opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the majority, lowering it to the level of the largest number...."
Best description of China I ever read. That's straight from Mussolini's "The Doctrine of Fascism."
On a related note anyone read the article on how Chinese police jailed parents who tried to go back to the faulty death-traps - I mean schools - their government had built. The police were also instructed to keep foreign press away from the schools and to not let anyone take photos. A pretty good example of how the most important thing is the state above all - including it seems the needless deaths of children.
Just another step in China's eventual bludgeoning of the American economy. First you openned the door to trade with them. Now they outproduce you, and now they seek to sue your comapnies for wrong dealings while undercutting your prices and pirating the hell out of your goods. A lot of good people saw this coming, and now we just sit back and watch the sad dance play out to its bitter end.
US trades with China.
China outproduces USA on material items.
USA moves to Intellectual Property.
China ignores IP laws except where it suits them to make money.
US economy collapses
China is new global superpower.
But that is what doesn't make sense. Last time I checked Microsoft charged less for Windows in China than in the US not more. When you think about how many systems are built and preloaded with Windows in China I can not believe that it costs Lenovo less to sell Windows on a PC in the US than it does to sell it in China.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
So it's quite possible for a Communist country like China to change their official ideology to Han Chinese nationalism and corporate state/slave labour capitalism and still be just as far from the UK, Canada or Australia.
So don't be fooled that they given up on 'Communism'. The PRC was never very socialist anyway, most European democracies went much farther down that path.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
I claim to be the King of Prussia. Doesn't make it so, anymore than China's claims make it genuinely communist.
Anything against Microsoft = I agree :)
Let's go China!
But just like with the EU, this is will be nothing more than an attempt to extort money from successful American corporations. I know /. hates MS, but any sincere customer centric resolution to anti-trust *outside* of the corpration's home country would be done diplomatically with that countries government.
Very true. The far crazy right isn't that different from the far crazy left when you truly look at it.
This no value added comment brought to you by one bored guy.
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
The axis of evil calls your business model evil.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
Agreed 100%, and it is an absolute farce that they were awarded the Summer Olympic Games.
I can't believe the IOC even considered China. It's like hosting the games in Nazi Germany and having Hitler preside over the event.
Oh wait...
Ordinarily, no, I don't think so. There's a natural limiting factor to this kind of thing, because if you sell your product much more cheaply in a poor market than in a rich one, then people will make good money buying up stock in the poor countries, shipping it to the rich countries, and selling it on at a profit while still undercutting your official price there.
The problem comes when the product has a near-zero marginal cost to produce, and near-zero weight. It costs Microsoft almost nothing to stamp out ten thousand Windows disks and sell them in east Asia for a dollar each; if that's what it takes to compete in that market, a dollar per copy is better than nothing. But similarly, it costs me almost nothing to buy up ten thousand Windows disks and ship them to England, there to be sold in a street market; I can undercut their official price by a huge margin, and still turn a healthy profit.
Thus Microsoft play silly buggers with the EULA, claiming that their product is licensed not sold, and that it's illegal to use in England the copy they sold in China. And Hollywood play silly buggers with region coding as well, to make sure Europeans don't buy DVDs from America of films that aren't yet in our cinemas, and to make sure neither of us buys DVDs from China priced super-cheap to compete with the pirate market. Is that legal? Don't know, but it's sure as hell not right. If globalisation and free trade benefit the corporations, who'll outsource your job at the drop of a hat, it should work for us too: I want to outsource my DVD buying, thank you very much.
One thing I'm pretty sure of is that this is not legal within the EU. You can't sell a product cheaply in Slovenia and dearly in Germany, and then complain when the Germans buy in Slovenia. Apple ran afoul of that a little while ago with their iTunes pricing structure, though I'm not sure how that turned out.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Well, I tend to disagree.
Imagine you are responsible for the whole IT infrastructure of some company. The size of the company does not matter. Imagine you choose to deploy say Microsoft Office 2003 or (if you are more oriented or pushed towards smaller costs and/or increased "freedom") even OpenOffice.org .
Now try to imagine a reaction of a CEO of given company after:
To add more spice, imagine that client was a big one and potential income (and thus real loses) are quite big.
:)
All that thanks to inability or whatever of Microsoft to use and follow open standards or at least some decent backward compatibility and our quite small ability to push them toward that (thanks in quite big proportion to what some people call "dominant position in the OS market for PC" or, more importantly "dominant position in the office document format market for document exchange" which stems from the firts one), which would ussualy make the above example non issue.
hany
No, you pay more because you don't have large institutions negotiating the price on drugs on larga scale (such as countries with nationalized health care), and because your insurance companies rape you for them, as their interests are aligned with those of the insurers. That, and the fact that the FDA functions in a completely innefficient manner.
Do remember that a lot of big pharma is based on Europe. Take Novartis for example.
Wouldn't that mean that they aren't communist and are a dictatorship ? Because in a communist government, there are no classes. So lets see we have A) Classes, B) Unequal distribution of wealth C) some people are really poor, others are filthy rich, and D) one party/person has total control. Seems like a dictatorship to me. And communism != dictatorship. They may be called "communists" but only in the way that the USA is called "free", in name alone.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
"The PRC was never very socialist anyway, most European democracies went much farther down that path"
Really?
Did they organize all farmers into Colletives? Did their government take over virtually all manufacturing enterprises (i.e. state own enterprise) ? Did their Communist Party install representatives in all enterprises to enforce doctrinal purity?
There has been tremendous change in people's thinking and the organization of productive activies within the last 10 years - since Teng Xiao Peng redirected China toward a more pragmatic path.
Listen to people who've visited China and don't rely on academic abstractions. US people have a bipolar attitude toward China. When they spout cliches toward one another, nothing is learnt and they will not gain a realistic picture of China as potential partner or competitor.
National Socialism
as opposed to universal socialism known as communism.
So when the government controls business, i.e. "nationalizes" or "socializes" it, that is fascism. At least in the original definition.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Most banks in America are FDIC insured. Post-Great Depression, can you name an instance where banks loaning money too generously resulted in "screw[ing] depositors over 100k?" Does this happen often? And does this happen because banks are pressued to make loans to "the little guy," whatever the current definition of that term is?
How many bank executives can you name that retired with a "golden parachute package" after failing at banking? Were they forced to retire, perhaps by the board of directors? Does that not sound like a clear case of "the system works?"
"Bankers en masse make loans to fund housing/stock bubble"... You realize that the housing bubble screws banks out of any money related to mortages? Y'know, how this "housing bubble" you say those evil bankers made involves them being stuck with a devalued house and a bad loan? I can see how they had to scheme hard for that deal - it must go all the way to the highest levels of our government!
Continue living in ignorance, and tell me where you cash your paychecks and keep your savings. I'll be happy to call you a hypocrite.
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