Is Google Attacking Microsoft?

This is a question which I have been wondering about for quite sometime. Over the past year Google has openly flouted Microsoft's supposed reign of all that is I.T. They demolished them in the search engine war, they cracked the Chinese market, they took away MSN's dominance over chat software through Google Talk and now they are making in-roads into office productivity.

With yesterdays announcement that Google has acquired the AJAX powered Writely they have declared war on MS-Office. Writely is an online word processing tool that many have touted to be a MS-Word killer. This is actually good news for the consumer as it could possibly mean that Google won't just stick with word-processing, they may be going for the whole shebang. Imagine having the ability to create entire presentations online. Its not going to be limited to text documents, the next step is for google to create an excel like application. With this acquisition they now have mail, chat and document creation within their domain.

Previously during the week google leaked (mistakenly?) the existence of a G-Drive. This is a simple hard drive that will exist on google's servers. I imagine that the G-Drive will be linked up to the office applications as well as with your email. As of last month they already seamlessly integrated chat functionality into email, this kind of integration makes sound business sense. Why would businesses pay Microsoft for licenses when their employees could do all of this for free online?

But does all of this make anyone scared? Personally it frightens the crap out of me. I'm quite paranoid at times and I for one will be sticking with my open office solution. I dislike leaving my computer open for anyone to see my information so I sure as hell won't be leaving private, confidential documents on a third party server. Google still spouts the mantra - "Don't be evil". Ever since their in-roads into the Chinese market I believe that they have many customers to convince that Google can do no wrong before I trust them fully once again. A blank check might help...

A penguin,a panda & an animated paperclip go into a bar

Fortune magazine has an interesting article stressing the Chinese market's importance to Microsoft's long term strategy, and touching on Linux's involvement in the Chinese market.  

In the early days of Microsoft rampant piracy helped establish it as the de facto standard in PCs despite good alternatives. History may be unfolding again here, with the exception that having the Chinese government as an ally has huge additional benefits. Or perhaps Gates has met his match with the Chinese government.  

In another boost for Microsoft, the government last year required local PC manufacturers to load legal software on their computers. Lenovo, the market leader, had been shipping as few as 10% of its PCs that way, and even US PC makers in China were selling many machines "naked." Another mandate requires gradual legalization of the millions of computers in state-owned enterprises. In all, Gates says, the number of new machines shipped with legal software nationwide has risen from about 20% to more than 40% in the past 18 months.

I bought a new Presario laptop in Dalian last year, the initial machine was void of an operating system.  The nice clerk unwrapped the new machine and straight away brought out a nice new shiny CD of Microsofts XP OS.  Needless to say I never let the young fellah put the CD into the drive.  This is one user in China which China has not conquered. Should I have gotten the computer at a cheaper price without the OS installed?  Anyhow I left him with the words Debian Linux ringing in his ear.  

So has Microsoft truly conquered China?  I don't believe so.  Firstly should we define victory by having every single machine running a version of Windows?  Is it based on sales in which case Linux doesnt stand a chance.  Maybe defined by the number of home or business users?  By the way, even pirated software sellers do not stock linux in their cardboard boxes, why sell something which be obtained completely free.  Mission criticle systems in any business will continue to run on some nix based system, if they don't then their IT manager should be fired!  

The article I am referring to makes notes to how the current regime in China is very close to Mr Gates, who is actually treated like a rock-star in Beijing.  Hell, Hu Jintao even had dinner in Mr Gates humble abode, Microsoft must be great.  I should remind people that Microsoft made no secret of their dealings with the US government regarding encryption and purpose built-in back doors to their software.  Outrage from the Chinese people ensued which led to a brief boycott of the system for a time.  As a result of all of this subterfuge Microsoft has allowed China to have a look at the fundamental source code for its Windows operating system and to substitute certain portions with their own software - something Microsoft had never allowed in the past. Now when China uses Windows in President Hu's office, or for that matter in its missile systems, it can install its own cryptography.  China was very keen "to control our own destiny", while the People's Liberation Army Daily noted that "without information security, there is no national security in politics, economics, and military affairs."

Efforts such as this probably play a large part in Fortunes perception that Microsoft has conquered China.  When asked about why the people of the Middle Kingdom liked Linux Gates appeared upset and replied:

"What the heck are you talking about? I think what you're talking about is that you're assuming that the American does a reliable job in reporting on China. I doubt you read the government's press release... what the press in [the US] wrote and what the facts are is 100 per cent different."

Of course it is well known that the Chinese governments press releases are always 100% correct and valid.  Anyhow, I digress.  On another note I find it hard to imagine that no-one seems to be paying attention to Red-Flag Linux.  During the latest launch for Red-Flag  Linux the Ministry said it would give its full support to the development of Red Flag Linux, as well as all the other Linux systems.

Red Flag Linux has gained around a quarter of the server market since it was launched at the end of last year and the Chinese government also reported that software sales in the first half of this year grew to 9.1 billion yuan ($1.1 billion), with the domestic proportion being 30 per cent.  There is additional support in that Jiang Mianheng, the son of Chinese president Jiang Zemin, plays a prominent role in the management of Red Flag.  It's been a while since anything worthwhile was released by this company.  The last release was in 2005, with 5.0.  Time for some Chinese to get patriotic and do their duty to update this Microsoft killing Chinese beheamoth.

So in conclusion, Microsoft has a "a great market share in China but not a lot of revenue". Microsoft software is just too damm expensive for the market. Personally I think 5RMB for a DVD of Microsofts complete software catalog is just simply way too much.  China's operating system heart is still up for grabs, Canonical, Red-hat, Solaris and many more different nix enterprise providers have set up shop in China.  I don't think this press release will cause them to lose much sleep. 

For Microsoft, there is a dangerous possible downside to this: the Chinese government still may decide to avoid any anti-piracy enforcement problems by declaring Linux to be the official operating system for the government in the future. If the world's biggest potential market went Linux, it is easy to envisage a consequent domino effect that would not just strengthen Linux in the rest of Asia, but have a profound effect in the western world as well.  For a company that has spent billions investing in the Chinese market perhaps they should be the ones experiencing the sleepless nights.

Disclaimer: I live, breath and dream Linux when not dreaming of beautiful girls...(I think it's impossible to breath and live beautiful girls, one can but try though).

Open source advocate gets “re-educated” in China!

God dammit. I always seem to miss the best parties. Thanks to a friend of mine I was on the list to attend the Microsoft conference in Peking University. The guest of honor was Microsoft’s founder and all round philanthropist, Bill Gates. Supposedly he was going to discuss “Innovation in China’s future”. I wonder if that includes spyware, malware etc., all of which is synomonous with the Microsoft brand name.

Anyone who knows me for 5 minutes knows that I am a complete advocate of Open Source software. Anyhow I bailed out of not going to Bill’s speech for a few reasons.

Anyhow, a friend of mine warned me that if I was going to go that obviously my rotten eggs would be confiscated at the door, so that would obviously lead to a piss poor party. What is a party of Microsoft without a little egg throwing anyhow?

I’m really kinda regretting not going right now. It appears that someone else was undeterred and crashed the party.

Bill is looking thoroughly amused n’est pas? Is this the best way to represent the Open Source movement? Off course not, it’s not even sensational, it’s idiocy at it’s height. If you want to support open source then run Debian or Ubuntu or one of the other plethora of free operating systems out there. Both organisations have released fantastic systems this past month that blast Vista out of the water.

Now this man appears to be an middle aged gentleman. Back in Ireland this kind of stunt would have been purpotrated by a teenager with perhaps a slight slap on the wrist. However remember that this is China, is this unknown gentleman’s whereabouts currently known? Does he still have organs? Has he been or is currently being “re-educated”?

It appears that the culprit reportedly darted across the stage, “loudly shouted against Microsoft’s monopoly,” proudly displayed a sign of “Free software, open source,” and was promptly “tackled by security and removed for questioning.”

Anyhow, all jokes aside, anything that is done to bring awareness to the open source movement is only a good thing. I’m just sorry I wasn’t there to throw some eggs and evade capture. Viva la revolution!