A senior executive for Microsoft has said the firm could pull out of non-democratic countries such as China.
Fred Tipson, senior policy counsel for the computer giant, said concerns over the repressive regime might force it to reconsider its business in China.
"Things are getting bad... and perhaps we have to look again at our presence there," he told a conference in Athens.
"We have to decide if the persecuting of bloggers reaches a point that it's unacceptable to do business there."
"We try to define those levels and the trends are not good there at the moment. It's a moving target."
Earlier in the day, speaking at the Internet Governance Forum, Mr Tipson had defended the work Microsoft was doing in China.
At a session about openness he denied that some big businesses were "colluding" with certain governments.
View: BBC Story
Fred Tipson, senior policy counsel for the computer giant, said concerns over the repressive regime might force it to reconsider its business in China.
"Things are getting bad... and perhaps we have to look again at our presence there," he told a conference in Athens.
"We have to decide if the persecuting of bloggers reaches a point that it's unacceptable to do business there."
"We try to define those levels and the trends are not good there at the moment. It's a moving target."
Earlier in the day, speaking at the Internet Governance Forum, Mr Tipson had defended the work Microsoft was doing in China.
At a session about openness he denied that some big businesses were "colluding" with certain governments.
View: BBC Story
And Microsoft is still more or less Bill Gates'. He's giving a lot to charity, which helps getting a good image. It would be strange if, at the one hand, their promoting information societies with charity, and on the other hand do business with a country that suppresses freedom of speech.
it's the same as witht he google issue. china gives google an ultimatum to either get out, or provide a china friendly google. Google could pull out, but at the same time as they do that, the deprive the chinese peoepl of even more access to information thant hey do by providing them with a filtered google.
oh and tot he OP, writign MS with a $ make you look lilke an idiot. it's not cool, it's nto smart. it's just stupid.
True. But they should get out of China & other undemocratic countries.
True. But they should get out of China & other undemocratic countries.
Like the US?
Read the news much? There's a little more being done to the bloggers than that. Some have been thrown in prison for up to 8 years for acts as seemingly trivial as quoting forbidden news-sources. And let me assure you, Chinese prisons are no cakewalk - many are forced-labour camps, some even sell cheap goods for Western consumers. A lot of people won't survive 8 years there.
Look for Freedom Manager service in Vienna which sends all your blog text to the Chinese censors.
One thing I have always wondered about is intellectual property rights in China. It was my understanding that on a cultural level, Chinese perceive the act of creation as a process of channeling ideas and energies from the world around you. Thus no one person owns a song, a program, a painting, because they merely acted as a conduit for the energy around them to create the item in question. I have always heard that piracy is rampant because of this, because on a social level Chinese (supposedly) just don't respect copyright and IP laws. I also recall MS many years ago being upset about the sheer level of piracy of XP after its release, specifically in China, being the worst offender.
If this is true it makes me wonder what the actual value of the Chinese market is to them.
Also consider that not too long ago the Chinese government was accused of more or less sponsoring a 'fake' NEC company, i.e., a company manufacturing goods identical to NEC goods, branded with the NEC brand, and having employee uniforms identical to those of NEC employees, NEC stationary, the whole nine yards. NEC eventually found out and was very upset that the Chinese government apparently left the people responsible for this whole fiasco with a slap on the wrist. See also how the Chinese government has more or less funded the theft of processor design, etc.
They are, I think, interested more in what is good for China and its people than, I'm guessing, what some American company Microsoft makes in profits each quarter... so maybe the government is less concerned with piracy than it could be.
Also, if it takes a Chinese worker months to earn enough money to buy a copy of Vista, you either aren't going to sell it to them, or you are going to have to discount it massively.
For reference see Barry Manilow's "I am the music and I write the songs" (featured on this weeks Colbert Report, duet with Steven Colbert)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/27/business/nec.php
Last edited by hapbt on 01 Nov 2006 - 21:53
Many nations already tried to do same in the past... They failed too.
It's just impossible to fight against water!
bye.
but i don't think that m$ will pull out anytime soon, china its one of the biggest market its not business wise
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