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China Bans iPad, MacBook Pro, Other Apple Products For Government Use
MojoKid (1002251) writes "China seems to be on a mission to isolate itself from the world, at least in terms of technology. After banning Windows 8 on government PCs and raiding several of Microsoft's offices in China as part of an anti-trust investigation, Chinese officials have now prohibited purchase of several Apple products for government use. The list of banned Apple products include the iPad, iPad Mini, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and half a dozen other items, all of which were left off of a final government procurement list distributed in July. This is a potentially big hit to Apple, which generated around 16 percent of its $37.4 billion in revenue last quarter from China. Apple saw its iPad sales jump 51 percent and Mac sales boosted 39 percent in China."
Blame the NSA
we will just use an knock off made at the same factory as your own stuff.
...for cooperating with the Machiavellian pro-war, pro-surveillance, pro-torture old boy's club in the federal bureaucracy.
Up to now, they've been banning proprietary products for the benefit of more open ones. I know that we like to show China as a country with isolationist tendencies, but I'm not sure the glove fits on this one. I don't think choosing not to get screwed by Microsoft or Apple is such a bad thing.
It isn't really that interesting when you consider the snowden leaks and our turn about with huwaei and zte in regards to US government infrastructure.
Once they get it, all will be forgotten
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
"China seems to be on a mission to isolate itself from the world, at least in terms of technology."
Why would they want to isolate themselves from the world? They may be looking to increase security (with the whole NSA mess, I wouldn't blame them) or trying to cut a better deal with Apple. There may be other rational reasons too.
China has always been controlled from the center. In past eras, China has had technological and exploration advantages over the West that were wiped out by intrusion and isolation commanded from China's locus of concentrated power - whether via emperors, or the current regime.
Long run (maybe, even near-long-term) this does not bode well for China's prospects, because when one is sealed off from outside ideas and innovation, one will ultimately fall behind and adapt only in suboptimal ways. What results is a waste of social and intellectual capital.
Since this only affects government purchases, we'd have to know whether a significant part of last quarter's Chinese sales involved government entities purchasing these products.
I'd expect government sales - especially to China - aren't a huge part of Apple's business.
#DeleteChrome
So lets get this right...China are investigating Microsoft for antitrust, and outright banning of Apple. Time is right and MIPS64 is looking ever so attractive.
Good news everyone...
Authoritarianism has its perks.
...productivity in Chinese government offices rise sharply.
"China seems to be on a mission to isolate itself from the world, at least in terms of technology."
They didn't say that. They said they don't want GUBMINT to use APPLE stuff. That doesn't shut down China's entire technology capability.
There are other people in China.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
China has always been controlled from the center. In past eras, China has had technological and exploration advantages over the West that were wiped out by intrusion and isolation commanded from China's locus of concentrated power - whether via emperors, or the current regime.
Long run (maybe, even near-long-term) this does not bode well for China's prospects, because when one is sealed off from outside ideas and innovation, one will ultimately fall behind and adapt only in suboptimal ways. What results is a waste of social and intellectual capital.
That makes no sense. China just banned its government from using Apple products, not Apple products in general. It hasn't sealed itself from outside ideas and innovations at all. Chinese citizens can still buy iPads and iPhones so Chinese smartphone manufactures still has to compete.
Another reason why this may have happened that most people probably wouldn't think about is that this might be a move to fight corruption. iPads and iPhones have been vastly popular as "gifts" within the government. Banning the government from purchasing them as gifts would help to fight some of the corruption problem they're having.
China has not banned any Apple products. Some were not included in the "green" catalog because Apple failed to submit data.
I mean, isn't all of Apples shit made in China anyway? That would be like the US government banning GM cars.
"Be grateful for what you have. You may never know when you may lose it."
It should be way easier for the US to conduct electronic espionage
While I'm inclined to believe that Apple's products are unlikely to be secure against the level of hacking that a state actor could afford to level, your assertion makes the assumption that China doesn't want to be able to hack the computers of government employees....
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I'm sure government purchases are a small fraction of the total purchased by the general public.
There are many government agencies around the world which haven't approved Apple, Microsoft, Blackberry, or other particular products for their purchase lists. Government purchases are just a nice feather in the cap for most companies. They really could care less, other than some people amongst the general public who think government purchase approval is some sort of "security approval" for a device.
They want the mass market. And that has not been cut off by China by any means.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
is anti-American. Stop that.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
*shrug* Samsung Electronics has some tempting little eight-ARMed chips that would feel great on a Mini-ITX motherboard. Still not FOSS, but if that's really important to you, there's lowRISC (Berkeley RISC-V including development toolchain and Linux image) and just now Parallax's Propeller for your I/O needs...
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
foxcon assembles these in china
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Xiaomi top seller in China
I'm not saying it's 100% Xiaomi, but I'm sure it's somewhat related. Not even "hey we need to have Xiaomi #1" as much as "we need to have local tech #1".
"China seems to be on a mission to isolate itself from the NSA, at least in terms of technology. FTFY ;-)
Dear Microlimp: I give you 2 valid product keys for win7 and you reject both of them. Piss off you wankers!!!
Android is a linux distribution put together by Google, with Google extensions and optimizations. Not sure with that has to do with the argument that Microsoft is less open source than Apple and was not "banned" from government procurement, therefore the motivation for China's action is probably not open sourc-y-ness.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!