Microsoft visited in 鈥榤onopoly probe鈥
Print Edition
GOVERNMENT officials made unannounced visits to four Microsoft Corp offices across China yesterday as part of a nationwide anti-monopoly investigation.
The United States-based technology giant declined to discuss the purpose of the visit, but said in a statement it was “happy to answer the government’s questions.”
Officials from the State Administration for Industry & Commerce visited its offices in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Chengdu. Though the SAIC was unavailable for comment, an official from the Shanghai bureau said the visits were in relation to a monopoly investigation.
Microsoft is being probed because of the dominance of its Windows operating system and Office suite of administrative programs. It also has been the focus of anti-American sentiment since Edward Snowden revealed its technology was used for cyber espionage.
In May, Chinese government offices were banned from installing Windows 8 — Microsoft’s latest operating system — on new computers. The order was a response to the withdrawal of support for Windows XP, which forced about 200 million Chinese users to upgrade their operating systems or continue at the risk of system crashes, viruses and Internet fraud.
“The Windows XP update shutdown is an information security incident,” said Ni Guangnan, a computer scientist from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
“It will create serious loopholes for computers,” he said.
Ni and other industry officials urged government and industry leaders not to adopt Windows 8, and instead encourage the development of a homegrown system.
Microsoft is not the only US firm to have a rocky time in China, the world’s biggest information technology market, with more than 600 million Internet users and 1.1 billion handset owners.
Qualcomm is facing an anti-monopoly investigation from regulators for charging local firms “unreasonably high” license fees, Securities Times reported last week, citing an unnamed source from the National Development and Reform Commission.
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