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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.
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."
Huawei, ZTE, or Red Flag linux are all fine as 'monopolies',
Except that none of these are monopolies. In fact, they are not even market leaders.
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?
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.
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 !
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.
`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!'
They aren't monopolies, just all subsidiaries of the same organization.
Revolution is the opium of the intellectuals.
... 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.
I don't get it, how are any of those companies monopolies or behaving monopolistically? certainly funny that you include a niche, even in china, linux distro there.
but MS is kind of fucked here. if they hired chinese to run the business then sure, they used dirty tactics to keep making money, because that's "business" for them and probably never occurred to them to not bribe someone against using red flag linux vs. a ms product.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Two multinational telecommunications brands and a Linux distribution vs a PRISM?
Like many nations, best to go with your own staff, code, hardware and software long term. Too many eyes with the costly imports.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
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.
It's much better than the traditional story of "Let this rich American company fuck with this other country because fuck it we're 'Murican".
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
I'll bet the Chinese government took a page from the EU and figured out it could levy whatever the hell sort of fines it wants against these tech giants, and they'll probably just eat it as a part of the cost of doing business. That is, so long as they don't fine them more than it's worthwhile to do business there, because of course, said company would simply say "screw you" and leave. They figured that a charge of "Microsoft is a monopoly!" would work just fine, since that's been bandied about in the West so much already. You watch - I wouldn't be surprised if MS is going to get a nice, hefty fine levied against them, but probably not so much that they'll contemplate pulling out of China's market completely. Nothing like a government-sponsored extortion racket.
The other possibility is, like the linked article implies, that this is part of the government's push for technological self-reliance, and a move to start pushing their own operating systems and squeeze MS out of the picture. We've seen that with Google pretty clearly already. Or, maybe it's a bit of both - a way to squeeze a bit more cash out of the tech giants before eventually pushing them out altogether.
Hard to say, really. China is a mystery wrapped in an enigma to most westerners like myself.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Whoever modded this insightful is an idiot.
The EU takes a very dim view on abusive companies, local or foreign. Whining because the company is American just means you get to whine twice. Once because the evil Europeans are harming the benevolent rich american companies and once more because you have shitty phone contracts that massively suck, unlike in the EU, where they dealt with those *local* companies.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
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.
The EU didn't just "levy" a fine, Microsoft were found guilty in a court of law and spent years appealing and then refusing to comply with the judgement leading to their fine being massively increased.
I don't get it, how are any of those companies monopolies or behaving monopolistically? certainly funny that you include a niche, even in china, linux distro there.
but MS is kind of fucked here. if they hired chinese to run the business then sure, they used dirty tactics to keep making money, because that's "business" for them and probably never occurred to them to not bribe someone against using red flag linux vs. a ms product.
Microsoft never had problems using dirty tactics, they did that very well on 100% american hands. You sound kinda racist.
Good. I don't see why the USA should have a monopoly on fining companies. You have fined European banks billions and let your own banks off the hook for pennies. I hope China fine your asses off. Hyprocrites.
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.
I perhaps worded it poorly, as I didn't mean to imply the EU judgement was necessarily without merit. Rather, I'm simply implying that the Chinese government may have been looking at the end result of Microsoft's and Google's cases (i.e. paying large fines to the EU), and could have seen that as a lucrative opportunity, either economically, politically, or both.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
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!
...and they were finally expended and discarded like a used husk.
China and their government isn't a mystery, enigma, or anything of the such. Due to the Cultural Revolution, their entire society was "rebooted". 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!
Life is not for the lazy.
If you steal the product you sell, then you aren't a monopoly.
I guess Microsoft has nothing to fear in that case.
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.
> You have fined European banks billions and let your own banks off the hook for pennies.
Correction: our government has fined European banks and handed many domestic banks billions. o.O
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
China is one of the few countries that send convicted corrupt business executives to the firing squad.
This could be interesting.
Tracy Johnson
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