Note: The important point in this story is China's resentment of the West. There are those in the West who think China can be turned into a cuddly capitalist toy. This is a profound error. China is simply biding her time to gain revenge on the "foreign devils." Robert Henderson
Chinese fly Red Flag with ban on Microsoft
By David Rennie In Beijing
CHINA is to ban its vast bureaucracy from using Microsoft's forthcoming Windows 2000 software in favour of a home-grown system known as "Red Flag".
The official Yangcheng Evening News said the policy would save billions of pounds, and represent a triumph of self-reliance comparable to the development of China's first atomic bomb.
"The important government ministries will not permit the use of Windows 2000 on their computers," the paper said, citing senior officials. Instead, they would use the "Red Flag" Chinese operating system based on the rival "Linux" platform. Older versions of Windows currently dominate the burgeoning computer industry in China, though few of the millions of copies sold earn a single cent for the company's founder, Bill Gates.
Chinese state-backed software experts have alleged that Windows contains a secret "back door" allowing data to flow to Microsoft when a computer is logged on to the Internet, jeopardising government security.
Officials at the Ministry of Information Industry said a formal ban was unlikely in the near future. "But the government is advocating that users buy domestic software," an official said yesterday.
The reports are a fresh public relations problem for Microsoft as it attempts to turn a profit in the China market, which is marked by alternating hero-worship of Mr Gates and' outbreaks of prickly nationalism.
Microsoft has poured resources into China. But the company has also made enemies by launching legal actions against some of the countless firms that steal its software. Up to 90 per cent of software used in China is pirated, including much of the programming used by government ministries.
Mr Gates is said by local Microsoft executives to have sanctioned one innovative solution, agreeing to pose for photographs with senior Chinese managers who sign belated software licensing agreement at $1 million~ (600,000) a time. For all such efforts, Microsoft's China managing director abruptly quit the firm last I year, accusing Mr Gates of failing to understand or respect local conditions. Wu Shihong later maintained that Microsoft had forced local' firms to steal its products by setting its prices too high.
Ms Wu's Western colleagues recall her as a fiery patriot who held an emotional company protest meeting after Nato's bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. In China she has become a heroine.
Robert Henderson philip@anywhere.demon.co.uk
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