back to article China: Microsoft, don't shy away from our probe

China's antitrust regulator has confirmed it met Microsoft's lawyers over its investigation into the US firm, warning it to abide by Chinese law and not to interfere with the probe. China's State Administration for Industry and Commerce said in a statement (translated by Google) that it had spoken with deputy general counsel …

  1. This post has been deleted by its author

  2. Dan Paul

    Just leave now...

    Just like everywhere else, the idiots don't understand the principle of the better mousetrap.

    "If you build a better mousetrap, people will rush to buy it."

    What happens when your company is the only one to build a mousetrap that people want?

    You get strung up on anti-monopoly charges, that's what happens. You will not be allowed to win.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Just leave now...

      I'm not sure I understand your point - are you saying everyone wants to buy Microsoft's products?

      Most don't, they get it with a PC or they need Windows simply because it is what other things need, not that it is something they want to buy. Same goes for Office, some people like and want certain advanced features, but most folk end up needing it because of the piss-poor compatibility of MS' document formats over the years.

      We don't yet know what the Chinese are concerned about, maybe those "free" trials to encourage folk to start using Office and then to disable it so they pay for more? Rather than (non-technical) folk being offered some choice or even the idea that you could get another word-processor/spreadsheet/etc. i.e. IE again?

      Just now I don't know if MS are being treated fairly or not by the Chinese, interesting times ahead for sure.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @Dan Paul - Re: Just leave now...

      Are you trying to portray Microsoft as an angel here ? If I rememmber correctly, Microsoft is the only large corporation that has been successfully convicted of monopolistic behavior on more than one continent.

      A quick reading of court documents from Comes vs. Microsoft will help you a lot.

      1. Dan Paul

        Re: @Dan Paul - Just leave now...

        Being convicted by kangaroo courts doesn't count.......ANYONE in BUSINESS already does what they did. Haven't you ever heard of the mobile phone market and how they lock in millions of customers forever? How about "take or pay" restrictions on iPhones? Nah, you're MS blind.

    3. Steve Todd
      Stop

      Re: Just leave now...

      You're allowed to invent a mousetrap so good that you end up with most of the market.

      What you can't then do is use your position to force stores to ONLY stock your trap, or to use the cash you made to subsidise your efforts in other markets (say selling bear traps below cost price).

    4. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

      Re: Just leave now...

      Microsoft doesn't make a better mousetrap. Microsoft runs a protection racket. If you don't use their everything, they'll break your fucking kneecaps. So pay the protection money.

      That's what "bundling" and "integration" and "embrace/extend/extinguish" or standards is all about. Abusing a monopoly in one area to enforce a protection racket in another.

      Most people don't want to buy Microsoft. They don't trust Microsoft, and they sure as hell don't want Microsoft's broken UIs. But so long as Microsoft can keep convincing those who hold purchasing power in governments and businesses to do so, they have us all by the balls.

      1. Hellcat

        Re: Just leave now...

        Most people don't want to buy Microsoft. They don't trust Microsoft, and they sure as hell don't want Microsoft's broken UIs

        Citation needed?

        In my experience, outside of the workd of Linux and Unix admins, most people are blisfully unaware of the OS on their PC, and just don't complain in the way you are suggesting. We must move in different circles?

        1. Jess

          Re: Citation needed?

          !

          I think you'll find the sales figures for Windows 8.x provide all the citation needed.

          Especially when the general (techie) opinion (mine included) appears to be that if you remove the 'broken' UI you get left with the best OS they have produced.

          1. Dan Paul

            Re: Citation needed? @Jess

            Bored...Let me know when you have a REAL arguement. Have you actually "tried" to use Windows 8.1? I thought not.....The sales figures will rise when people have to upgrade to a later version, same thing happened with Vista, ME, 95

            All China is truly concerned about is the obsolecence of XP (The PM's Ex-brother inlaw can't still make billions off pirated copies) and the required use of online activation for any newer operating systems so the Chinese will finally have to pay for their OS. Oh, that and they didn't get the customary "gift" they were expecting.

      2. Dan Paul

        Re: Just leave now...@Trevor

        The mere fact that MS have a product that is in 95% of the computers in the world means (in your mind) it "must be a monopoly"; however if that many people do not want MS, don't you think there might be a real desktop competitor by now?

        Do you really have a better mousetrap Trevor? So far, there is none that matches the penetration that would accompany such displeasure that you tout. When somebody develops one let me know.

        IE 11 is more compliant with standards than any MS browser before, the OS is more secure than Linux, and it does more. Office is perhaps slightly more obtuse but works very well.

        Keep downvoting, it still does not counter my claims that MS is a "better mousetrap".

        Be honest with yourself, Trevor. You know have a freetard Linux agenda and you will never be satisfied until you get your way.

        1. big_D Silver badge

          Re: Just leave now...@Trevor

          @Dan,

          IE11 is so compliant, at least on WindowsPhone, that the next release brings a lot of "break-it" fixes to IE11, so that it can handle non-standards compliant pages that are designed to use Webkit tags that are not part of the standards, but regularly used by poorly coded mobile websites.

          1. Dan Paul

            Re: Just leave now...@Trevor

            Agreed, The whole point of all these OS and browser changes by MS is to make "One Ring, to Rule them All" including mobile. That is NOT a bad strategy, just one that freetards don't like because MS might have ANOTHER advantage. Who said that all website developers know what they are doing either?

        2. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

          Re: Just leave now...@Trevor

          "Be honest with yourself, Trevor. You know have a freetard Linux agenda and you will never be satisfied until you get your way."

          You're an idiot.

          1. Dan Paul

            Re: Just leave now...@Trevor

            No, I am not, your writing provides all the proof I need to make that statement. You are pro linux and anti Microsoft in literally every argument there is. You know (or should) I'm not wrong!

            1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

              Re: Just leave now...@Trevor

              Actually, no, you're just an idiot.

              If you have actually read my arguments you'd know damned well that I'm anti everything unless and until something has proven it's value to me and to my clients. As soon as it has stopped being of value, I'm against it. Value is calculated in many ways: monetary value, trustworthiness and enablement.

              I have just as openly pooped on Linux and Apple as I have Microsoft. And I have praised Microsoft, Linux and Apple as well. I am not "pro" anything (except Ninite). You, however, very clearly are. And to you, anyone who doesn't agree with your prejudices must obviously be biased.

              So piss off. I don't have time for those who can't separate "disagrees with my view on who is worthy of worship" from bias. You are irrelevant and you are annoying.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Just leave now...

      Tit for tat?

      Would the Chinese economy survive if we bought all our production back home?

      1. Uffish

        Re: bring back all the production ...

        ... sadly (for us) they'd probably carry on as before and people would still buy Chinese because of the price.

      2. John Bailey

        Re: Just leave now...

        "Tit for tat?

        Would the Chinese economy survive if we bought all our production back home?"

        Would yours?

      3. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

        Re: Just leave now...

        "Would the Chinese economy survive if we bought all our production back home?"

        Yes. The US just isn't that significant. There are 6.7 billion other people in the world, and they will all still buy Chinese.

        1. Fungus Bob

          Re: Just leave now...

          Sadly, Trevor, the US is _that_ significant.

          http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/american-consumption-habits/

          http://www.cnn.com/US/9910/12/population.cosumption/

          1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

            Re: Just leave now...

            I never said the Chinese economy wouldn't take a hit. I said it wouldn't collapse. The US, OTOH, relies on cheap Chinese goods so absolutely that an inability to source them would obliterate their economy overnight.

          2. cortland

            Re: Just leave now...

            Our politicians are working to make us more thrifty -- by paying us here what Chinese get THERE.

      4. big_D Silver badge

        Re: Just leave now...

        Tit for tat?

        Why do you think the Chinese government is doing this? Their companies are facing similar sorts of problems in America. Chinese Networking hardware companies are being refused the right to tender, because the US Government alleges they are full of backdoors that send information back to China.

    6. cortland

      Re: Just leave now...

      Do not pass Goh, do not collect many renminbi...

  3. channel extended
    Holmes

    If Windows is a mousetrap, I am a ?

    MS did not build a better mousetrap, They bought the better mousetrap and then monopolized the mice.

    In the early days they did listen to their customers, but then they got so large the accountants took over and sold the customers out. Face it, they got so large that the company said what direction the market was going to go in rather than it's customers that made up the market.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Big Brother

      Re: If Windows is a mousetrap, I am a ?

      @channel extended : "MS did not build a better mousetrap, They bought the better mousetrap and then monopolized the mice."

      Actually MS were hired-on by IBM to design a mousetrap, but got a clause inserted into the contract that allowed MS to license the mousetrap to third parties. The license also precluded using the mousetrap with anything else but Microsoft Cheese. Years later when third-party companies started seling their own cheese, MS extracted revenue from their customers for violating Microsoft's patented cheese-making process.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: If Windows is a mousetrap, I am a ?

        "Actually MS were hired-on by IBM to design a mousetrap"

        Which MS then went and bought, IIRC, in the form or QDOS. And in fact almost all of their products were purchased (or in a few instances conceptually copied). Microsoft must be a joy to behold for lawyers and accountants everywhere, proving that you can build a vast semi-monopolistic cash cow without being in the slightest bit creative or innovative, and without listening to customers.

        The greyness, the lack of excitement, or risk, the whole corporate bureaucracy....yuk. If Microsoft were an item of clothing, they'd be XXL grey y-front underpants.

    2. Dan Paul

      Re: If Windows is a mousetrap, I am a ?

      Windows today is a far cry from MS Dos or Windows for Workgroups.

      Windows 7 is pretty much as good as anything you could ask for in an OS and Windows 8.1 will be the basis for a much better Windows 9. Unfortunately, they also have "activation" so they are much more difficult to pirate.

      You just have to be able to accept change (which few commentards here do well). Kvetching is apparently much easier.

  4. keithpeter Silver badge
    Windows

    Realpolitik

    I suspect this is a lot of politics plus a little bit of a real issue somewhere. The FBI (?) puts out a warrant for the 'arrest' of Chinese army officers associated with cyberwar. China decides to enforce local commercial regulations.

    That isn't to say I disagree with the sentiments being expressed above.

    The tramp: noodles with fried onion and soy

  5. cortland

    Gee

    That huge Chinese market is looking less and less attractive. First you can't get your profits out of China, next they steal your tech, then your staff faces the prospect of reeducation...

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