Posted on 04/20/2006 9:00:14 AM PDT by ShadowAce
The past few weeks have revealed much about the great paradox that is China. It is a nation that wants a capitalist lifestyle with centralised totalitarian rule. The past weeks have also revealed a lot about the Western World's biggest IT companies, Namely, they'll do just about anything to crack the giant fortune cookie market. Some will give away their software, others will allow their search results to be censored and others may even be prepared to help the Chinese Government track down its dissidents. The more principled ones among us may say: "IT companies beware of the Chinese trap." I say: "China, remember your 19th Century history. IT capitalism is a far more powerful drug for an emerging technology nation than Opium."
The meeting between Chinese President Hu Jintao and Microsoft chairman Bill Gates may have seemed to some a polite symbolic gesture on the part of China to show that it is serious about adopting Western standards of intellectual property and proprietary ownership. However, coupled with the $1.2 billion sweetheart deal that Microsoft just announced with China’s number one PC maker Lenovo, the intent of the leader of the IT capitalists is crystal clear: lock in.
Microsoft, which has around 90% of the global PC operating system and office productivity software market, has achieved its remarkable stranglehold through a process called lock-in. Those of us, which is most of us, who have had the Windows operating system on our desktops for more than a decade, know all about lock-in.
We Windows users know all about the files we have created in Microsoft Office over the years, not to mention the numerous other applications that have been developed for Windows by software companies such as Adobe, Macromedia, and smaller independent software vendors. We know how we have come to depend upon those applications and the data attached to them.
Our dependence has never become more apparent than when we discovered that there is a whole world of innovative and most excellent software that is freely available and collectively labelled under the banner of open source. Much of this software, such as Open Office.org, an excellent free replacement for the overpriced Microsoft Office, will run on both Windows and the alternative operating system Linux. Likewise, the increasingly popular Firefox internet browser, which is superior in both functionality and performance to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, will run on both operating systems.
However, there are many applications that will run only on Windows. While there are usually equivalent and even superior applications that will run on Linux, they are not easily interchangeable. This is what we mean by lock in. The longer you use the drug called Windows, the more you become addicted and locked in. The harder it becomes to make the break and move to a free and open environment where applications don’t cost an arm and a leg.
China is a nation with a unique opportunity. Yes there are a plethora of PCs on the market with pirated versions of Windows. Despite what anyone may say, it is a sure bet that Microsoft is happy about that. It’s the initial hit of free Opium. Eventually, as China is forced to tighten its regulatory requirements on PCs being sold into the market – it’s already happening with the no naked PCs rule – users will be forced to pay for their Windows operating system. In the meantime, they will be busily locking themselves into the plethora of Windows specific applications. The more they get locked in, the higher the price will be.
China make note. Windows is a drug that much of the world is trying to wean itself off. Look to the EU. Look to Brazil. Look to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the US. There is an alternative called Linux, which includes all of the applications you need to do business, and it costs a fraction of the price. You may want to buy an Xbox 360 if you want to play games however.
OpenOffice.org
It's great and FREE.
Look to anywhere you can find a bastion of leftists, that hate capitalism and rich Americans...
Apparently, the author does not count themselves as being among the "more principled ones".
Apparently, the author is mostly interested in helping the totalitarians in China avoiding any bumps in the road.
Gates is a running dog lackey in the great Satan's imperial capitalist plot to bring China to it's knees....
I think...
Ah yes, the much-feared "network effect". That's why everybody is now forced to use Wordstar and VisiCalc for everything.
Nope, because I don't see them attempting to warn the lovely communists in China about those evil capitalists at Microsoft. That strictly seems to be you, ShadowAce, and a couple others.
Im sorry can you point me to a place where I said capitalism was evil? it seems your implication is clearly that it is *because* the folks at MS are 'capitalist', donations to the UN and Planned Parenthood not-withstanding, that I think they are 'evil'.
That's the name of this thread, and here you are defending it. Even calling out the flaming dude from hell, LOL.
You know, as good as OpenOffice is, I wouldn't use it to replace my office's desktop suite. MS Office -- whether you love it or hate it -- is just significantly better, both in terms of usability and programmability. But, of course, that's just my opinion.
What's wrong with preventing your enemies from outbreeding you?
I can understand that. You should use what works best. As a coder (C/Perl/bash at the moment), I don't need all the stuff MS sticks into its Office suite. I use OOo and it suits me perfectly.
Man, I dunno - I don't think we should be dealing with an aggressive, centrally-controlled, monolithic totalitarian regime attempting to take over the world and enslave us all...but, hey, enough about Microsoft...
I am against abortion, this puts me at odds with planned parenthood..
LOL!
If you're actually against abortion, seems you'd really be worked up about China's "forced" abortions.
Yet, here you are like usual, on a thread about China, yet never able to utter a wimper of protest except against US corporations.
mark for later read
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