Beijing cancels $US3.6m Microsoft deal — I assure you that there is more to this than what is being reported. Exactly what? I do not know. Do any readers have thoughts on this??
The government procurement office of Beijing Municipality has cancelled a $US3.6 million purchase order for operating systems and office software from Microsoft, according to a report in the China Daily.
Microsoft was awarded the deal on November 17, which would have allowed the Beijing municipal government use of the software for three years.
Mmm… could it be that once China got the source code from Microsoft, it doesn’t actually need to buy Microsoft’s products anymore?
Expect a cheap Chinese version of a Windows type OS and an Office type office suite in the coming years. Maybe not in the US, but certainly in the rest of the world.
My initial, cynical thought is they’re suffering from buyer’s remorse. More realistically, I think they want to leave themselves open to investigating open-source alternatives. The City of Munich recently announced pretty much the same thing. And as Microsoft figures out its new relationship with the open-source world while it struggles to get a feature-stripped version of Longhorn out the door, some customers are using it as an opportunity to consider the alternatives to a Microsoft-centred world.
I suspect this will be a fairly common theme over the next couple of years as governments, under increasing pressure to identify value, look to the software side of infrastructure as a potentially lucrative source of cost savings.
Carmi
http://writteninc.blogspot.com
The word Linux was just translated into Chinese?
Was it you, Dvorak, who said that Micro$o£t must be threatening to sue Linux due to lost grounds in Asia? Good analysis.
Good Linux exposure can come from the huge Chinese population. I look forward to it!
If Microsoft was smart, Imafish is right. Give it to them, otherwise, there’s no reason China shouldn’t go Open Source.
you say: ?Was it you, Dvorak, who said that Micro$o£t must be threatening to sue Linux due to lost grounds in Asia? Good analysis.”
Was it? When? My experience is that Msft is promoting piracy in these regions to stave off Linux.
And how does one “sue” Linux? It’s like suing the sky. Or suing the number One.
[Dvorak]
“Was it? When? My experience is that Msft is promoting piracy in these regions to stave off Linux.
[Schestowitz]
I must have read it somewhere else. How can M$ promote it? Passively perhaps? Turning a blind eye?
[Dvorak]
And how does one “sue” Linux? It’s like suing the sky. Or suing the number One.”
[Schestowitz]
Which is the amusing part of it all…
An interesting article at the Register:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/18/ballmer_linux_lawsuits/
Microsoft seems to be going for the tried and true “Carrot & Stick” plan.
Carrot: Cheap, stripped-down versions of XP, to keep people from switching to Linux – and generate some revenue from people who would not otherwise buy windoze.
Stick: Use the WTO, and the chance of entry into the WTO, as a way to club governments into accepting US/European laws.
i.e. Published Thursday 18th November 2004 10:34 GMT
Asian governments using Linux will be sued for IP violations, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said today in Singapore. He did not specify that Microsoft would be the company doing the suing, but it’s difficult to read the claim as anything other than a declaration of IP war.
and
it suggests that Microsoft sees the wider implementation of corporation-friendly IP law that is part of the entry ticket to the WTO as being a weapon that can be used against software rivals. More commonly, getting WTO members to ‘go legit’ is viewed as having a payoff in terms of stamping out counterfeit CDs, DVDs and designer gear, but clearly Microsoft’s lawyers are busily plotting ways to embrace and extend this to handy new fields. It could be used to throttle emergent OSS companies, and it could conceivably be used to take the new generation of US (and maybe EU too) anti digital piracy and IP laws global.