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China Prefers Sticking With Dying Windows XP To Upgrading
tdog17 writes "China says it wants Microsoft to extend support for Windows XP because that will help in its fight to stop proliferation of pirated Microsoft software. A state copyright official says the release of Windows 8 means a substantial increase in the selling price of a Windows operating system, especially in light of the upcoming end-of-life of Windows XP, which is still used by a large percentage of Chinese. That could drive users to buy pirated copies of a new operating system because they are cheaper, he says."
Why is Microsoft selling Windows 8 for so much more than Windows XP? For most uses it's not significantly better.......
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
For now they're still under the delusion that saving money and not needlessly upgrading are virtues. With time they'll learn to throw away perfectly good computers and millions of hours of training for shiny things.
Here in China, it is not really possible to even find a normal "legit" version of Windows. All versions found at any normal store will be pirated. A typical price for pirated Windows, sold in a professional looking box, will be about 18 yuan (~3 USD). There is even a common software program used to deliver updates to pirated XP machines. This software also comes with anti-malware tools, and is called "360." This program is the only way that China is able to keep going with Windows, circumventing copyright protection while still receiving regular updated from this service!
A few months ago I was talking to a sales clerk at a computer market. I saw stickers for Ubuntu on the laptops there, yet the operating system was obviously Windows. I pointed at the sticker with a smirk, and asked him about it, already knowing the answer. He sheepishly tried to tell me how they put on Windows because that's the standard in China. Obviously they were getting discounts from the manufacturers for dumping the Windows tax, and then turning around and installing pirated Windows on these computers. By the way, these were big brand names like Dell, HP, Samsung, Lenovo, Asus, etc. Out of curiosity, I asked him if many people in China use Linux, and he said it is used mostly for servers (he mentioned Red Flag Linux specifically).
Systemd: the PulseAudio of init systems
"It's the [Windows] with the lowest additional value"
That sentence scares me.
There are dark places in the universe. Depths of irrationality where mathematics are just rituals and sorcery. A chaos where what should never be is fighting to escape. In that place there's a pit that even the horrors avoid. A tear where the tapestry of reality is at its weakest point.
That's where they store "the Windows with the lowest additional value". And that's where it should stay. Watching us. Hungry.
The only reason software companies have the new model mentality is to make money off what they push as a new model. Software companies would be better if they shifted away from that and to doing just version updates. 90% of the development costs are paid for on an existing OS, the rest is doing bug fixes and enhancements. I personally see no reason to go to Win8, I don't care for the interface. I tolerate Win7 because I can make it mostly like XP but wish I didn't have to add software to fix the start menu. I think the drive away from the standard desktop is partly killing the desktop PC. The standard XP style desktop works. Changing it makes no sense on a desktop PC. It requires people relearn things, increases IT support costs and slows down productivity. At work my productivity has slowed down going from XP to Win7 because on Win7 I have to deal with more of the little popup context menus that get in my way no matter how much I tweak it and the copy/paste issues of Win7 drives me crazy. I don't like to side with the Chinese government on anything but on this I agree... On windows, upgrading to Win8 doesn't make much sense.
*It's not what you can do for the Dark Side but what the Dark Side can do for you!*
India which is much poorer:
Win 7 & 8: 58%
WinXP: 30%
China:
Win 7 & 8: 43%
WinXP: 50%
Africa, South America, everywhere else that is poor XP is in massive decline. This is basically China being the odd man out, they're the only ones who want to stick to XP. Now I'm guessing most of those copies aren't legitimate, but I don't see why that should be any different in China than the rest of the world. It's just that XP is the de facto standard I guess.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Used to that Microsoft can sell anything.
Used to that anything with the Microsoft (c) brand on it, no matter if it's the OS or mouse or keyboard or office suite, they are guaranteed to sell like hotcakes.
No more.
With one fumble after another, with more and more alternatives to Microsoft's products (of which many of them are free), Microsoft is running out of cash cows.
Right now they are so desperate that they are trying to milk Windows 8 as much while the going is still good.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I found I could not change the language from Chinese. Some research showed I was expected to pay for an upgrade to get Windows, that I paid for, to actual be usable. Microsoft really don't promote legal use of their products with such attitudes!
I don't quite understand, you were surprised by this? You were in China and bought a netbook locally, of course it's going to be the Chinese version of Windows. I understand the interfaces used on many Linux distros come with support for a large number of languages out of the box, but Windows comes in different versions for different languages and the ability to change the entire operating system to a different language is a feature you have to buy. It's always been that way and I'm not sure if that even changed in Windows 8. I'm sure part of this is to recoup the development costs with translating and localizing the OS.
The reason is not the recoup the development costs - the reason is Price Discrimination: The ability to charge a different price in different markets. The optimal price for Windows in the US is much different than the optimal price for Windows in China - and if you can charge different prices here, Microsoft will make more money. Restricting language change is one mechanism to avoid Americans paying Chinese prices.
Ferrari cars cost just as much to develop as your average ford. However, the number of cars being sold, will make the development cost per car much higher. Add much higher production cost because of materials used, fabrication methods used, number of actions to produce a certain part and yield to the equation. Even if Ferrari would make a bold move and decide to sell their cars at the same price as Ford, they would still have to buy more expensive materials and do more to those materials before they are a car.
MicroSoft may have put more money in developing Win7 initially than they did in XP, I wouldn't know if that's the case. The real thing is that the production cost per copy is negligible; they just turn a knob and come up with a sales price based on a marketing model.
The home PC market is crashing since most people don't need a PC anymore to watch movies, communicate with their family or play games. The introduction of the computer in the home has moved from the single device to smart phones, tablets, media players and game consoles. People hardly need a "real" computer anymore and the budget for one has moved on to other devices. School going kids and students may need one to do school work on and learn, but the requirements for that sort of machine aren't that exciting usually and an older model or really cheap new hardware will do just fine.
Offices don't really need PCs to do more than office work. To be honest, typing a letter or stuffing things in a spreadsheet hasn't changed much over the past ten years or so. Offices tend to move towards VDI where the machine the user has is only an input/output device and the "desktop" is actually running on a server, often not using a desktop OS in a VM, but simply a session on a server OS.
MicroSoft is losing their monopoly in office suit software, server software, e-mail platforms and such. Several attempts to get new markets like search engines, media and music players, have failed to yield any profit and are costing them money. Depending on how you look at it, their game console business is a success, but the net profit they got from it is either not fantastic, or they are still in the red and it's not a commercial success at all. They have a large part of the market, but it's still not clear how much they have spent to get that and if they actually have recovered that money. The desktop PC market is shrinking rapidly and they need some way to keep all those developers paid and shareholders happy.
With the current stock price and results they had in the past, shareholders have very high demands. This makes that they are turning the knob for the Windows7 and 8 desktop OS prices way up. This makes people either pirate it, or buy a PC that comes loaded with crapware to sponsor the price of the OS, or they move to another OS because they are tired of the whole windows clutter and viruses.
In China, crapware sponsorship is worth next to nothing because piracy is much more prevalent there and sponsors expect very little return on the installations. That makes the OS very expensive to put on legally for vendors or end users, resulting in even more piracy.
China has the power to convince MicroSoft to extend XP life and even sell it for a lower fee. If the Chinese government would decide to move to Linux as the OS for all official government desktops, home users will follow that sooner or later, especially if it was free and there would be less malware. It wouldn't be easy or cheap to do so for China, but this XP retirement is an event where they have a clear cost/benefit model that has a pivot point that is an actual threat to MicroSoft. If China would migrate to Linux, it'd give a much bigger threat to MicroSoft than a few German cities doing it. Even the cities migrations have already resulted in quite a few enhancements that make Linux a more viable desktop alternative. Once China puts their weight in, the reasons that keep linux away from the corporate desktop will disappear rapidly. Given the recent revelations
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
That is 100% wrong. XP is a pain in the ass to pirate and Windows 7 is the absolute easiest to pirate. Windows loader, one click and I'm done. Windows XP requires a mess to keep it from blacklisting the generated key.
You really need to learn about piracy before you talk about it, because windows 7 has a huge OEM hole that makes it effortless to crack. Windows 8 is getting about as easy to crack as well.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.