Ballmer Says 90% of Chinese Users Pirate Software 313
jbrodkin writes "Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer used the official state visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao as an opportunity to complain that 90% of Microsoft software users in China didn't pay for the products. The comments were part of a discussion with Barack Obama and the Chinese president about intellectual property protection. According to a White House transcript, Obama said in a press conference that 'we were just in a meeting with business leaders, and Steve Ballmer of Microsoft pointed out that their estimate is that only 1 customer in every 10 of their products is actually paying for it in China.' Obama didn't detail any specific measures the US and China would take to help Microsoft and other vendors fighting software piracy. 'The Chinese government has, to its credit, taken steps to better enforce intellectual property,' Obama said. 'We've got further agreement as a consequence of this state visit. And I think President Hu would acknowledge that more needs to be done.' Microsoft did not say how it calculated the statistic that 90% of Chinese users aren't paying for Microsoft software."
In other news. (Score:3, Insightful)
Party beliefs are that property is that of the people, really you should only have to buy one copy for all of China, in this case I think they've overpaid, but that could be said for anyone that pays the Micro$oft tax.
Surprised (Score:2, Insightful)
Really do you think Obama will push the issue at all? With all the issues the US has with China, the first few days of Hu's visit resulted in nothing but securing pandas for zoos for a few more years. Whoop dee fucking doo!
If Ballmer thinks anything will be done on this front, he is stupider then I thought.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Which means lower costs. (Score:4, Insightful)
We compete with people who pay lower costs (legally) for everything from software to medicine.
Then on top of that, 90% pirate.
Good lord, no wonder the jobs are going over there. We should fine the hell out of any company selling products in the U.S. which were made by people using pirated software. But we keep those fines for U.S. countries and citizens while giving China a free ride.
This ends one way.. but it will probably take a few more years to play out.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Why doesn't china standardize on FOSS? (Score:4, Insightful)
Rather than convince its citizens to send billions of Yuan to a US company, maybe the Chinese government would be better served to promote FOSS solutions like (Linux + Openoffice come to mind immediately but I'm sure there are other free/cheap office suites)
If I were an official in the Chinese government, I'd trust a Chinese forked Redhat distribution combed by loyal Chinese developers a lot more than a closed source operating system from a large US company to keep my secrets safe -- there's no telling what backdoors the US goverment asked MS to embed.
So ? (Score:1, Insightful)
oh boy. that only happens in america, or satellite states since the corporations have the government all in check all the time. its not that way with china, 1+bn, india ~1bn, and russia (200 mil+) and so on.
its high time to wake up to the fact that not all world turns on the hinge of governments which are vulnerable to riaa, mpaa, bsa, this that.
Should have said (Score:2, Insightful)
"We understand your concerns. However, the Chinese people feel that intellectual property belongs to the people as a whole. It is fundamental to our way of life. As such it is nearly impossible to convince them to pay for something that they truly believe should be free. There are only two solutions. The first is that Microsoft secure their software in such a way that it can not be copied with your express consent. This option has been shown over several decades to be impossible. The second is the approach I shall take... We can not train our entire law enforcement system to distinguish all the varieties of Microsoft software and its current DRM status, but we do not want you to feel like we are steeling from you. Instead, effective immediately, Microsoft software will be illegal in the Peoples Republic of China. All traffic to your websites will be blocked. All mention of your companies name on our search engines will be gone (Google has assured us this will not be a problem.) Any version of any Microsoft product found on any citizens computer will be intermediately deleted and replaced with an open source equivalent on the spot. We hope that this small gesture will stem the tide of revenues Microsoft has been losing to Chinese thieves over the years."
Re:in other news (Score:5, Insightful)
99% of Americans in Iraq are involved in stealing oil and illegal war... What is Ballmers opinion about that?
Didn't you hear? They fixed that. Americans returning from Iraq are now given a pat-down by the TSA to check for any stolen oil drums they might have hidden under their cloths. The problem has almost vanished!
Re:Which means lower costs. (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft wants all users, infringing or not! (Score:4, Insightful)
Windows, and MS applications, could be a lot harder to pirate than they are.
They are not, because Microsoft would rather have infringing users of MS software, rather than have those users migrate to non-MS software. An infringing MS desktop is still an MS desktop, and MS can count it among their installed base, which works in their favor in all situations when someone makes a pro-MS argument based on installed base.
They even let infringing users keep Windows dynamically up to date!
You can't hold the view that all users are welcome, infringing or not, and then at the same time complain about a large nonpaying fraction of your user base.
Re:[citation needed] (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe their unwillingness to bow to the ridiculous "intellectual property" of the West is part of the reason they're doing so well.
And maybe it's something we could learn from. Apparently, putting corporate profits ahead of everything else may not be the only successful approach.
You could say that without the profit motive, we'd never get any decent operating systems, and to that I would answer "Ubuntu".
Re:Which means lower costs. (Score:3, Insightful)
During the Dot Com Recession almost a decade ago, I ran across a rant from an East Indian programmer complaining that a certain software development kit was "too expensive for Indians".
I counter-ranted, "You may be the dude who got my programming job because you cost an American company half or less of what I cost. Now you are complaining that you don't get an 'Indian Discount'?
You want the benefits of a global labor market without the downsides? Well, screw you! Use Notepad to program for my ex-job. At half my cost, a second dude standing around with the manual can be your analog IntelliSense."