Ballmer Says 90% of Chinese Users Pirate Software

jbrodkin writes "Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer used the official state visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao as an opportunity to complain that 90% of Microsoft software users in China didn't pay for the products. The comments were part of a discussion with Barack Obama and the Chinese president about intellectual property protection. According to a White House transcript, Obama said in a press conference that 'we were just in a meeting with business leaders, and Steve Ballmer of Microsoft pointed out that their estimate is that only 1 customer in every 10 of their products is actually paying for it in China.' Obama didn't detail any specific measures the US and China would take to help Microsoft and other vendors fighting software piracy. 'The Chinese government has, to its credit, taken steps to better enforce intellectual property,' Obama said. 'We've got further agreement as a consequence of this state visit. And I think President Hu would acknowledge that more needs to be done.' Microsoft did not say how it calculated the statistic that 90% of Chinese users aren't paying for Microsoft software."

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[Stargoat]

I have been to the crowded Chinese technology markets. They are fantastic places; it feels like Blade Runner or something else out of a Dick novel. Food stalls, people selling every kind of hardware (except the newest), all software everywhere (a lot in English, but most in Chinese), people of every variety (I, a big blond guy, didn't stand out much. If I had hunched over and worn a coat, most people wouldn't have noticed me.), and a variety of tongues. In the hinterland, the best spoken English I found was in the computer markets.

But if 10% of the non-Chinese produced software being sold was legal, then I am a fool who knows nothing about computers. I would say that number suggested by Ballmer should be far closer to 100%. There was nothing legal being sold in the computer markets, malls, or anything else I saw selling Microsoft products.

Oh yeah, the place is infested with computer viruses as well. There's no kind of virus like a Chinese virus that western produced AV products don't recognize. If you're going to do business in China, you should do it with a Linux based OS.