Silicon Valley's China syndrome

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Those China Experts

Sigh!

Most of them "China Experts" makes the standard mistake of comparing China with the US or Europe as reference. This have never worked out and it will never work out either.

The major obstacle any US or Euro software house have to fight is the income structure in China.

A normal government employee in any of the major cities earn about 2000 Yuan per month. One U$ is about 7.8 Yuan. You can easily find a Chinese Branded PC for 4500 Yuan - more than two month's salary but possible to pay back in a year or two.

A copy of ANY software costs about 10 to 20 Yuan per CD with everything translated to Chinese.

A "normal" student or youth, makes no money at all...

I just cannot see the average Chinese to be able to afford any western made software if they have to pay the full price! It just won't happen!

Believing that a Chinese would pay up the price for MS Office?! You gotta be smoking!

Now, combine this with a cultural attitude that just does not understand "Intellectual Property" or patent etc. You have to realize that this is a totally alien concept for the average Chinese as it have been rigorously erased since 1949!

You need to be aware of that the Chinese legal system as we know it, have only been in place as a limited framework since 1985! Yes, 1985...

The whole concept of private property is a relatively new concept and the Chinese Police had severe problems with people that was suddenly stealing things, when they - a year before - used a community owned resource.

And then we have those who want anti copying devices or instalaltion scripts to be mandatory... Dream on! If any clever youth in the US or Euroland can crack that, and circulate it over the internet.... Doooh! Don't spend money on it!
It don't work in USA or Europe, and it sure won't work in China either.

But at the end of the day, it comes down to two major reasons why the Chinese will not buy MS.
First, the price. Even a low MS price is to high!

Second: Can you blame the Chinese for suspecting foul play by MS and other US companies after the stupid NSA_Key stunt? Even if there was no back door or software disasbler - what an infantile stupid programmer did put these names in the software and what stupid supervisor allowed it? I'd blame it on company culture tho...

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Disclaimer

My wife insist on that I'm frequently totally wrong in my opinions and ideas and this text might - or might not fall into this category...

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Who am I then?! Well, I'm not a China expert but I lived and worked within IT in China for more than seven month's. I know! - It won't make me an Expert but it sure makes me understand what the Chinese do and why far better than I did before...


Cheers All

Posted by: dan@...   Posted on: 02/07/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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