Microsoft wants to control Asia, but Asia controls them

September 8, 2003

I'm re-posting this to a new thread, with hopefully clearer language. A few people misintrepeted my first attempt at posting this story and many incorrect assumptions resulted.

News.com: Microsoft: Asia not playing fair over OS

"A plan by Japan, China and South Korea to develop an operating system alternative to Microsoft's Windows software could raise concerns over fair competition, Microsoft said Friday."

Microsoft complaining about fair competition?

"We'd like to see the market decide who the winners are in the software industry, [...] Governments should not be in the position to decide who the winners are," Robertson said.

What are governments? The people. In this case, Asian people. (Okay, not so much in China, but still) If people in those countries (the Asian consumer, the Asian market itself) elect a government that decides they would benefit from an alternative operating system that they can use to access critical government services and the Internet to communicate with the global community, where does Microsoft get off thinking that that's unfair?

Microsoft should look into the reasons WHY Asia wants to do this. If Microsoft offered them a quality product at an affordable price under reasonable conditions, I don't believe they would be considering this.

One might presume Microsoft believes it offers a quality product, affordably priced under reasonable conditions. If that is the case they have nothing to fear. The only reason they should worry is if they know their offering is not as good a value as it could be for the Asian market.

No wonder Microsoft is worried.