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China versus US spy spat hits software sales

by on21 May 2014

US probably not expecting this

It appears that the US’s attempt to defuse spying tension between itself and China have backfired somewhat. This week US thought it would be a wizard wheeze to lock up a few Chinese citizens and accuse them of spying. This was a week after the NSA was photographed stopping shipments of Cisco routers and installing back doors in them.

Now it seems that China is prepared to show the US how much it actually controls that nation’s successful businesses by making life difficult for them. First off it has imposed a Windows 8 ban across the country. This not break trade rules because, as China points out, Windows 8 poses enough of a future security risk. Under the new rules government agencies will be forbidden from installing the operating system on any of its new computers.

This gives Microsoft a kick to the bottom line by stating that all desktops, laptops and tablets must now run an OS other than Windows 8. Consumers are not affected, as it'll only focus on computers used by government offices, but face it that is where the money was.

More than 70 percent of Chinese computers run Microsoft's 13-year-old Windows XP platform, and it seems that the government will now focus its efforts on its own Linux-based OS.

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