Beijing buys Microsoft
p2pnet.net News:- It looks as if hopes expressed by Microsoft founder Bill gates in 1998 are being fulfilled.
Talking to students at the University of Washington’s business school students back then, he said:
“Although about three million computers get sold every year in China, people don’t pay for the software. Someday they will, though. And as long as they’re going to steal it, we want them to steal ours.
“They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.”
Well, it’s the next decade and, “According to the website of the Government Procurement Office of Beijing Municipality, Microsoft’s sales agency Beijing Centre Electronic Technology Co Ltd became the only provider of operating systems and office software suites to the Beijing municipal government,” says China Daily.
“The transaction volume was 29.25 million yuan (US$3.52 million).”
Not only but also, “Tianjin Municipality also announced similar results on November 12,” says China Daily, continuing:
“Among the three winners in operating systems, two were Microsoft’s sales agencies.”
But there’s the rub.
Li Wuqiang is deputy director-general of the department of high-tech industry of the Ministry of Sciences and Technology.
“Related government procurement departments in some provinces and municipalities, regardless of national interests and information security, bought a lot of foreign software and did not procure or procured only a little domestic software,” he’s quoted as saying.
“The moves are against the Government Procurement Law and dealt a fatal blow to the development of the domestic software industry.”
Beijing’s response?
The official website of Beijing municipal government responded to criticism yesterday, says China Daily, adding:
“An article on the website said the municipal government found out in an inspection in the first half of this year that some government departments could not provide proper licences for software they were using, and most of them were Microsoft products.
“So the government decided to solve the issue once for all and would buy only a certain amount of Microsoft software.
“It also required that domestic software should be preferred in new projects in the future.”
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See:-
back then – Bill Gates’ China sales trip, p2pnet, July 3, 2004
only provider – Microsoft’s buying deals arouse concern, November 26, 2004
November 27th, 2004 at 12:22 am
Anyway Bill Gates was Right!!!!! Better late than never!!!
June 26th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Will Office 2010 allow adding new tabs to the Ribbon or changing places of current ones ?