China concerned about Microsoft
by Nikola Strahija on December 1st, 2004 There is growing criticism about public sector IT contracts being awarded to Western vendors in China, a country long known for its fondness of open-source and homegrown companies.
According to reports, Microsoft had won a three-year, $3.6 million contract to supply that city's municipal government, there is criticism that foreign companies are winning such business.
The contract comes in the same week that Dell signed a $10 million agreement with Chinese education authorities. One of Dell's key long-term rivals is likely to be China-based Lenovo.
Some government officials have spoken out, saying the deals may not only be bad for domestic vendors but also potentially in violation of a procurement law brought in at the start of last year.
China is already a big market for Microsoft and some other Western IT vendors, but the rise of Asianux, an open-source operating system collaboration between the governments of China, Japan and South Korea, points to those countries looking to cheap, nonproprietary computing options.
