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Chinese Government is buying Windows 7

by on21 May 2014

Just not Windows 8.1

Yesterday the Chinese government made a big thing about not buying Windows 8.1 because of Washington spying. The move shocked Redmond, particularly because the Chinese government had a lot of Windows XP machines which were dying.

There was mutterings in the press about how the Chinese were moving to Linux as part of a snub to the evil capitalist west. However it all turns out that while it is true that the Chinese have snubbed Windows 8.1 that is because they are buying Windows 7. Microsoft has since confirmed that they will continue selling Windows 7 to the Chinese government. However they will also be looking at trying to persuade the government to hop on board the Windows 8 train by working with relevant government agencies.

“Microsoft has been working proactively with the Central Government Procurement Center and other government agencies through the evaluation process to ensure that our products and services meet all government procurement requirements. We have been and will continue to provide Windows 7 to government customers. At the same time we are working on the Windows 8 evaluation with relevant government agencies,” Redmond said in a statement.

As we said yesterday, with an estimation of half of China’s desktop market still running on Windows XP, the decision not to upgrade to Windows 8 could be a blow to Microsoft. But if they are installing Windows 7 it is not really a problem for Redmond.

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