Microsoft move leaves users vulnerable
Print Edition
WINDOWS XP users, more than 200 million of them in China, are facing the risk of system crashes, computer viruses and Internet fraud after Microsoft yesterday stopped providing regular anti-malware updates for its 13-year-old product.
Domestic firms, including Tencent and Qihoo 360, promised to continue protecting users’ computers for several years but experts regard this as “temporary and vulnerable.”
In a promotion on the Tencent and Qihoo 360 websites, Microsoft is offering an upgrade to its latest Windows 8 system for 288 yuan (US$47), about a third of the regular 888 yuan price.
“It’s time for XP to retire,” Microsoft said on its Chinese website. “Please embrace Windows 8 for the Internet era.”
But even in the Windows family, Windows 8 is not popular.
The two versions released last year have managed to attract only about 10 percent of all Windows users in China, according to tech site Next Web.
As of the end of January, 49 percent of China’s computer users were using Windows XP, according to research firm StatCounter. China has more than 400 million computer users, which means that around 200 million computers are still running the old operating system.
“It meets all of demands of my parents including playing poker or checking stock prices,” said Chen Ming, who bought a computer with Windows XP for his parents in 2003. “I won’t upgrade to a new system they don’t know, let alone pay money.”
However, with many people using smartphones and tablet computers as alternatives to their computers, upgrading may not be so urgent.
Upgrading to Windows 8 would bring huge financial benefits for Microsoft. If just 10 percent of Windows XP users in China upgrade to Windows 8, even at the reduced price, the US company stands to make several billion yuan in extra revenue.
Microsoft has said it will cooperate with China’s biggest PC maker Lenovo and top Chinese dot-coms Tencent, Baidu and Qihoo 360 to continue offering some technical support for Windows XP in China. That support may last for two or three years, the Chinese companies said.
But even with the support of Chinese firms, Windows XP will be “vulnerable to risks,” said an executive with one of the Chinese firms. A video posted on China’s Youku site yesterday showed a hacker breaking Qihoo 360’s protection on Windows XP within a minute.
“The Windows update shutdown is an information security incident in China,” said Ni Guangnan, a computer scientist from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. “It will bring serious loopholes for computers.”
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