China Says There's No Antitrust Probe On Microsoft 87
natenovs writes "China's intellectual-property rights enforcer said the government isn't probing Microsoft Corp. for breaching antitrust laws, denying yesterday's report by a state-owned newspaper. 'We are not conducting an anti-monopoly investigation against Microsoft and have no plans to do so,' Yin Xintian, a spokesman and legal director at the State Intellectual Property Office, said by telephone today in Beijing. The newspaper's report is 'completely untrue,' the agency said on its Web site."
Piracy and Monopolies (Score:1, Interesting)
Hrmm... if a majority of the software in china is pirated, then can a company really hold a "monopoly" there? MS might have a majority of the desktop market(I'm not sure if they do), but they didn't do this by actually selling their products and making too much of a profit(in china at least). Anyone have any market numbers in terms of MS and how much they make off the chinese market?
No unsual at all.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The Antitrust Probe never happened... (Score:3, Interesting)
"However," noted anonymous internet sources, "probing speculation of a possible Chinese antitrust probe were rumored to have been widespread on areas of the internet outside of the China Firewall." The Redland, Shenainiganghei based office confirmed that "plans are just that -- plans -- and not promises of updates, upgrades, releases, or official actions." US officials noted that this statement was delivered by a Chinese intellectual property rights "enforcer", and not the more common Western "Czar". Said the US official, "if China were to lay down it's 'enforcer' card, we would collect that card with our 'Czar' card, according to internationally established rules regarding the power and value of cards."
Re:The Antitrust Probe never happened... (Score:1, Interesting)
Living in China, you realize pretty quickly that everything is about who you know, and how much "guanxi" you have. Literally, your network of people that you can call on. You can bet that Microsoft knows some people fairly high up in more than one government department in China, and has built up quite a lot of guanxi.
If I had to guess, I would say that someone was getting annoyed with Microsoft on a personal level, or Microsoft was trying to get around paying someone what they thought they deserved, who then started an investigation from their department. After that it was probably "discovered" by the paper. Then Microsoft called on their own people to fix it for them.
Another possibility is that someone in the Party wanted something, or wanted to stop something, from Microsoft, and used a planted story in the paper as leverage. Bad press, especially anti-trust in Microsoft's case, does not help their public image.
Re:China also says there's no.... (Score:1, Interesting)
I hate to see people criticize China's one child policy. Without it, China maybe now facing extreme case of food shortage. So, instead of becoming another poor nation that need international aids, it sacrifice as a nation and bootstrapped itself into self sustainable. I like to see the same level of sacrifice from you and your country. No, if we stop polluting the world, we might harm our economy, that's bull.
Yes, you do inherent right to free speech, the government just ignore you. So, what's the difference?
Re:Piracy and Monopolies (Score:3, Interesting)