Slashdot Mirror
Chinese Government Probes Microsoft For Breaches of Monopoly Law
DroidJason1 writes The Chinese government is investigating Microsoft for possible breaches of anti-monopoly laws, following a series of surprise visits to Redmond's offices in cities across China on Monday. These surprise visits were part of China's ongoing investigation [warning: WSJ paywall], and were based on security complaints about Microsoft's Windows operating system and Office productivity suite. Results from an earlier inspection apparently were not enough to clear Microsoft of suspicion of anti-competitive behavior. Microsoft's alleged anti-monopoly behavior is a criminal matter, so if found guilty, the software giant could face steep fines as well as other sanctions.
This is like being accused of overeating by the world's biggest fat man.
Huawei, ZTE, or Red Flag linux are all fine as 'monopolies', but M$ is the big bad company?
I don't like M$ either, but hearing the pot call the kettle black just rankles my fur.
what the DOJ failed to do.
following a series of surprise visits to Redmond's offices in cities across China on Monday
While I understand that this is metonymy, it's confusing as hell because at first read "Redmond's offices" == "Microsoft's offices in Redmond."
Fines, out-of-court settlements, what's the difference?
Unsurprisingly, the monopoly claims are only a cover story for other policy issues with China. As TFA even points out:
Unfortunately for Microsoft, they likely would have been better off actually breaking the law, because at least that would result in a trial over the truth (and some ill-gotten gains in the process). Instead, because this is a political maneuver by the Chinese, Microsoft is being used as a scapegoat here. Any resulting punishment for Microsoft will be based on the state of Sino-American relations and whether China wants to harm the US by proxy. Which given how things currently stand, MS is looking rather screwed.
So... it's apparently a criminal matter in China to be against monopolies? WTF?
since MS has been slapped with anti-trust. It's well past due. The delay is probably due to fucking up every OS since XP rather than MS improving their business practices.
He's also working on the next editions of the NewSpeak dictionary; Less words, easy to remember. Double plus good eh!
Nothing can stop the government or the people to switch to Linux or Mac OS. How is Microsoft Anti competitive here? Because they don't allow others to make copy of their OS? I would think that's normal, to protect your IP.
China is obviously just looking to steal data from Microsoft here.
these Microsoft fuckers need to go down.
MS is looking rather screwed
As no one has yet be able to screw MS since its inception, and as MS has screwed so many others throughout its own history --- it may be a good thing that MS finally getting that BIG SCREW that it so deserves !
The Chinese are playing "Lets fuck with the rich American company." I hear it's very popular in Europe.
So all six people in China who purchased software from Microsoft get a full refund and an apology?
Sounds like a 'nothing to see here' storey to me.
Microsoft did a great job by letting business users playing with their computer.
Microsoft also contributed in fighting pollution in a lot of Chinese sites, like this one :
Depolluted Chinese site by Microsoft
`Leave off that!' screamed the Queen. `You make me giddy.' And then, turning to the rose-tree, she went on, `What HAVE you been doing here?'
`May it please your Majesty,' said Two, in a very humble tone, going down on one knee as he spoke, `we were trying--'
`I see!' said the Queen, who had meanwhile been examining the roses. `Off with their heads!'
... read this and thought this was a hacking-related article
...Microsoft didn't share the source code?
I'm no Microsoft fan, but this is what bothering to do business with China gets us. China with its essentially a rigged economy based on something close to slave labor. The only way to compete economically with that is to become that. The cheap shit at Walmart just ain't worth it.
Revolution is the opium of the intellectuals.
Microsoft, Oracle et al seed "insider info" to Congress-Critters who recently legalized Insider Trading by Congress Critters after they were caught with their hands in the "Insider Trading Cookie Jar" en mass, courtesy the H1-B Visa Gang and other Lobbyist Groups but we can all rest assured, that the majoritywere tech stcoks 'cause they are HOT HOT HOT. Why aren't we killing the heads of State to preserve our way of life?
Frankly, anyone who does business in China should come to expect this. Stories abound about how Chinese companies "compete" with foreign companies in China: you wake up one day and find out half your manufacturing and IT infrastructure is "missing", some of which returns in a few weeks, and then three months later a new, Chinese-owned factory opens up down the street, making products that look exactly like yours minus the brand names and serial numbers, which just happen to have great contacts with the Chinese government so that factory ends up with all the lucrative government and commercial contracts while your company just continues to bleed money on its "China strategy".
This is just the next step, for companies like Microsoft and Apple that rely on their brand to sell product despite having government-owned knockoffs everywhere. A foreign company managing to actually compete with an honest Chinese company? Why, they must be cheating. And we will find cheating, whether or not it exists, and take what's rightfully ours, that is, anything that ever touches Chinese soil.
...Bruce Wayne admits that he only started to form a deal with Lau so that he could get a look at his books to see what he was really up to? This may be like that. Remember that anyone who gets anywhere in China is in bed with the CPC or at least the appropriate government officials--you don't get anywhere unless you pay off the right people---and that many businesses have links in the government. This may be an attempt to pry info out of MS so that it can be used to pump up a Chinese company.
Western companies keep trying to do business in China like it is a developing but Western nation. It is not. The corruption runs deep, deep and is vertically integrated in ways Western businesses somehow fail to understand. (Can't they get someone who has lived in China for a while on their advisory board?!?) The system is stacked against them. They cannot win because the game is rigged. Even if they play by the rules, the rules will be changed to be against them eventually, when someone pays off the right officials or a new company has a family connection to the right officials. At that point, they lose because they have no recourse. The Chinese government is accountable to no one. There are no courts to fight in because those are controlled by the same people who changed the rules.
Do they make a lot of profits from China? With all the piracy and all, their offices in China might be more for symbolic presence than because they're making money in that country.
nt
China with its essentially a rigged economy based on something close to slave labor.
And you know this how exactly? I've actually been to China whereas you pretty clearly have not. Slave labor? 'Fraid not. China has a lot of people and so thanks to supply and demand, wages are relatively low there. (but rising fast) Yes the Chinese government has a hand in everything but there are plenty of places in the US and EU economies where free trade does not exist and the government is heavily involved. Agriculture, weapons manufacturing, Boeing/Airbus, satellites, automobiles, and many more.
The only way to compete economically with that is to become that.
Your argument would be more credible if the US and EU didn't have manufacturing sectors equal to or larger than China's manufacturing sector. Cheap labor is only helpful for products that have a high labor content. Lots of products require relatively little labor or require specialized labor that isn't cheap anywhere. I have a stamping press in my plant for making wire leads. Operating this press requires some of skilled labor to set up and then it is all automated. No amount of cheap labor from China can undercut us on price, we're fast and we can pay our people good wages too. There are some products we can't compete with China on and there are some products China can't compete with us on. The trick is knowing which is which.
China is doing what the west did in its day. E.g. if the orient had valuable plants we would sneak them out and grow them ourselves; if the French had movie technology we'd copy it and build our own industry. Of course these days we would NEVER take another person's secrets, and NEVER have unequal trade practices. /sarcasm
Kudos to the authors for the "paywall" warning (I realize this digresses from the article). I detest clicking on a link, especially from a Google News, and landing on an annoying paywall.
Microsoft will be forced to unbundle Internet Explorer from Windows 95!
This is like being accused of overeating by the world's biggest fat man.
Yes, it is. It is about security rather than monopoly. Both discouraging Chinese citizens from using Microsoft (this lets state media trash talk them for a little while) and trying to get their hands on source code or other references to flaws in the OS.
invite the investigator for some nice dinner, have tons of "gan bei", you solve everything. No worries, dude!
China is one of the few countries that send convicted corrupt business executives to the firing squad.
This could be interesting.
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
"..............As such, both nationally and culturally, the modern Chinese are younger than America! The government further reflects this with rampant corruption and the two-faced attitude that comes from it. Today they 're your best friend; tomorrow they stab you in the back. That's China!!!" ..talking of stabbing in the back and of back stabbers.. what can we call the action of the said old modern.. listening on alleged partners from Europe phone calls .. does it also come with modernization and cultural revolution?
\n
Microsoft is way past its bedtime. the new CEO should just remove 80,000 more employees and get back to the core of software development. Oh, is that number too low, let's make it 100,000 employees.
Time to get back to what you should being doing best -- creating great software at reasonable prices.
Buh Bye $MSFT$ - I hope China swallows you like a worm and yes, there is no hook. Just a nice poison pill.
Obama is a communist. So yes. Most of Germany were in favor of him, they can like getting fucked in the ass by him too.