China Bans Government Purchases of Windows 8

itwbennett (1594911) writes "Last week, China's Central Government Procurement Center posted a notice on new requirements for government tender, that included, among other things, the mysterious request that Windows 8 be excluded from the bidding process on computer purchases. The agency could not be reached Tuesday, but China's state-controlled Xinhua News Agency said that the government was forbidding the use of Windows 8 after Microsoft recently ended official support for Windows XP."

Comments

considering what is known about the NSA

[FudRucker]

seems like the rest of the entire world would ban everything that comes from the USA, or even just passed through the USA, things like routers, computers & software, TVs, Stereos, portable radios, cellphones, anything electronic, the NSA's spying methods have basically gutted any confidence & trust the rest of the world would have in the USA

only forbids purchase, not use

[z_gringo]

It doesn't sound like they are actually forbidding the use of Windows 8. They are just forbidding the purchase of windows 8. I guess as long as pirated copies are used, then everything is fine?

Re:And what's better?

[mspohr]

Microsoft was still selling XP until October 2010 and ending support less than 4 years later so this is about par for an average OS.
However, XP is far from average and still runs on about half of the computers in China, most ATMs worldwide and, of course, most developing country computers, granny computers as well as on many corporate computers which are in the dinosaur category.
Everyone knows they need to get rid of XP but "change is hard".
China seems concerned about loss of support for XP (i.e. can't rely on Microsoft) and US spying in Win 8 (can't rely on Microsoft).
They would be better off going with their own home grown Linux distro but "change is hard" and they have an incredible installed base problem.

Re:So do we end up with the ironic situation

[Mr D from 63]

On the flip side, forcing everyone to use Windows 8 would be a violation of fundamental human decency.

Re:makes sense

[cpghost]

Yes, they give access to source code, but no instructions on how to build a binary that's 1:1 identical to the released version. This source code, for what it's worth, isn't proof that the release version is spyware-free.