Linux − Asia’s OS

It seems granting full partner trading status to China isn’t going to be the boon Microsoft expected. As a provision of gaining status, China has agreed to crack down on piracy, and, in particular, to stop using pirated software and operating systems in government agencies. Microsoft saw this as an opening for massive profits from newly-licensed software from a large established user base. The Register published Red Flag Linux beats out Windows in Beijing, pointing out a Gartner Group document, Chinese Firms Could Benefit From Microsoft’s Loss in China. The early indications are that China will be focussing on local businesses rather than Western ones.

<q> … the Beijing municipal government selected several vendors to provide operating system (OS), office automation (OA) and antivirus software for government PCs acquired without copyrighted software. Beijing selected only Chinese companies, including Red Flag (for its Linux OS) and Kingsoft (for its WPS Office OA product). Microsoft, which was among the seven vendors that bid for the contract, was the only one not selected.</q>

Apparently, Microsoft’s Windows line is much more attractive when free. When forced to pay for it, China found that:

<q>the adoption of Linux in China largely depends on some strong external factors, such as the applications that run on Linux, training and education capabilities, purchase and maintenance costs, and support service levels. (emphasis added)</q>

Korea has made a similar decision recently. Again, the Register reports in Korea migrates 120K civil servants to Linux desktop.

<q>The Korean government is to buy 120,000 copies of Hancom Linux Deluxe this year, enough to switch 23 per cent of its installed base Microsoft user to open source equivalents. … By standardising on Linux and HancomOffice, the Korean government expects to make savings of 80 per cent, compared with buying Microsoft products. </q>