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Follow-up to 1/5 story "Microsoft is Losing to Linux in China, Pakistan"

By Kwok

Written: January 5, 2002

 

Just read the similar news from a Chinese site.  The story is like this:
 
Microsoft did send a mysterious person to Beijing for this business, but the site did not mention who.
 
In 12/20/2001, a security hole in WinXP was discovered.  This caused a serious concern to the Chinese government, as WinXP is still a brand new OS.
 
In 12/27/2001, which is last day of the negotiation, Microsoft still insisted OfficeXP must be bundled with WinXP, other the price of one WinXP will be raised from RMB$850 to RMB$1200.  The Chinese government then asked for bundling Office2k instead of OfficeXP.  Microsoft said they won't sell Office2k because it was obsoleted, however they can provide a patch to "downgrade" OfficeXP to Office2k FOR THE SAME PRICE AS OFFICEXP.
 
Microsoft quoted Beijing municiple government a total of RMB$50M for 5k sets (probably a bundle of hardware and software) of RMB$10k per set.  WinXP is RMB$850 per copy and OfficeXP RMB$2650 per copy.  Upgrade cost will be WinXP RMB$475 and OfficeXP$1534 after two years.
 
Microsoft was then out of the game by 5:30pm on 12/27/2001.
 
Regards,
Kwok

The original news story from Mario is here.

 

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