Chinese Pirate A Ridiculous Amount Of Microsoft Software
China is on track to become the largest PC market in the world this year. Last year it was second only to the US, and it’s supposed to grow to at least match that of the US this year. Unfortunately for Microsoft, the market is only yielding 1/20th of the revenue that the US market is. This is in large part due to the fact that approximately 78% of PC software installed in China in 2010 was pirated.
Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer revealed these facts at speech he gave to Microsoft employees in Beijing last Wednesday. He noted that Microsoft’s total revenue in China, population 1.3 billion, is less than what it gets in the Netherlands, a country of fewer than 17 million.
The Chinese government has admitted that there are problems with the system in place, and are trying to make improvements to stop rampant piracy. Among other measure, the government has ordered all state institutions to buy licensed software, although between you and me, I doubt they’ll follow through.
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This does not surprise me at all. We bought a Dell laptop.. from the authorized Dell store in Beijing. We were given the option of real or “not real” MS Office. Then we were given the same option for the OS! I had my wife pay for the real version so we could get updates (which she has been getting). The OS is in Chinese so I do zero support on that unit, but her IT guy at the firm told her he was 100% certain it was fake. All from the “authorized Dell” store.