China Seeks Removal of IBM servers and Bans Windows 8
Who is to blame Microsoft and IBM are having difficulty doing business in China? Will the recent sanctions affect Apple’s sales, after the company spent a great deal of time trying to grab a piece of one of the most lucrative markets there is? Let's scratch the surface.
The Chinese government may ban IBM servers from use in the country's banking system, according to Bloomberg. Privacy concerns are gaining traction as China is moving to a more close collaboration with Russia, and away from the U.S.A. The China - USA relationship was increasingly tense with mutual cyber-espionage accusations, while the Chinese speculations were partially confirmed by Snowden files revealing massive eavesdropping on the key Chinese government members and a number of large companies, including Huawei.
As a result, the People's Republic can't be blamed for taking somewhat harsh, yet partial measures to cut the wire and limit the U.S. companies at least in their domination in the government institutions.
Now, Microsoft is blowing it with the Win 8 push-through. With the 26% of the desktops worldwide still running XP, a great deal of companies are forced to either upgrade to Win 8, which is neither easy, nor cheap, or make arrangements with Microsoft to extend servicing of their XP systems, which will only postpone the inevitable upgrade to Win 8. Moreover, there is no guarantee Microsoft won't do the same trick with Win 8 in some 5 years. In fact, Microsoft proved to be very capable of continuing servicing Win XP; the company, however, needed to promote continuously failing Win 8.
Now, back to China - Windows XP, as of now, services 50% of China's desktops, according to a research firm Canalys, and a great deal of those 50% is the governmental establishment. The Chinese government already made an attempt to create a state controlled OS to use in governmental institutions back in 2008 - Red Flag Linux.
The project failed to gain enough traction back then and was shut down. Nevertheless, its new iteration is currently under development by a UK-based Linux developer Canonical and goes by the codename Kylin. Even if it is virtually impossible to switch from Windows OS altogether for the entire Chinese population, replacing a U.S.-owned OS by a state-controlled one in governmental establishments is a big step toward protecting the Chinese national security.
Our media keep their regular line of defense explaining the Chinese bias against U.S.-made IT products is of a political nature and has absolutely no ground whatsoever. However, it's a highly simplified approach that disregards economic and security areas, putting surveillance and espionage beyond the scope of relevant factors.
We keep an eye on the current security trends, so stay tuned to Download3k for more updates on the story.
