China dismisses report of Microsoft Windows ban
Reuters Story - January 07, 2000 04:43
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BEIJING, Jan 7 (Reuters) - China forcefully denied on Friday it had banned Microsoft's Windows 2000 operating system from government computers.
The Ministry of Information Industry said it was making "this special announcement to set the record straight" after an official newspaper said on Wednesday the government had barred Windows 2000 to support the domestic software industry.
Zhang Qi, the top regulator of the software industry, said in the statement published on the ministry's Web site that her office had never issued a ban.
"My department has never made such a decision, much less made any demands," Zhang, the ministry's director of the Department of Electronics and I.T. Products, said in the statement, which she read to Reuters by telephone.
Michael Rawding, Microsoft's regional director for greater China, said senior officials at the Public Security Bureau and other ministries also had dismissed the report in the Yangcheng Evening News.
"It's a completely baseless rumour," Rawding said in a telephone interview.
Rawding said government ministries were strong customers of Windows NT, the operating system Windows 2000 is designed to replace. Windows 2000 is scheduled for release in China in March.
"We have several government agencies that are very active users of Windows NT and are looking very closely at ... Windows 2000 and are very excited about that product," he said.
The Yangcheng Evening News said government departments would be ordered to use "Red Flag-Linux" -- a new operating system developed by a government think tank and based on upstart operating system Linux -- instead of Windows 2000.
Microsoft has faced a stream of negative publicity in China, fuelled by a book written by its former Chinese general manager accusing the company of arrogance.
A piracy lawsuit by Microsoft against a small local firm last year unleashed a nationalist backlash from some Chinese who perceive the U.S. software giant as a monopolistic bully.
Sun Yufang, an official overseeing the Red Flag software project at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said government offices had expressed strong interest in scrapping Windows, citing concerns Microsoft had the ability to access their computers over the Internet.
Microsoft said it was impossible for it to track Windows users on the Internet or access their computers.
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