Just to Make Sure

Radios with tuning knobs soldered to a fix position may sound last century North Korean. However, it has been confirmed that Nokia's brand new flagship Lumia 920/920T Windows Phones offered to mainland China market are 'hard-coded' to an app store run by the Chinese government.

When owners of these Windows phones attempted to connect to the Microsoft app store, it would be re-directed to the state run app store hosted inside mainland China. Even if the owner set 'region' to other places, or travel outside mainland China, the phone would still refuse to connect to the official Microsoft store but rather redirect to the Chinese government store.

The government-run store in China is heavily customized. For example, you will not find Skype or Facebook apps.

This could prove to be a big blunder to Nokia's Chinese market. As Apple has dominated the 'fashion' population, and Android commands the 'feature' buyers, only a small number of 'geeky' users are left for Nokia's renewed high-end marketing approach. Unfortunately, this group is most sensitive to hint of information control.

A few months ago, Microsoft announced that it would retire the aged MSN Messenger worldwide except in mainland China. The aged instant messaging service was replace by Skype.

So they knew....

Ethics in IT Companies

Microsoft rejected EFF's accusation that it had intendedly closed the encrypted connection channel in his HOTMAIL email service in countries with political contentions between the people and the government. The areas where HTTPS, an encrypted communication protocol, were shut shown by Microsoft's Hotmail include Bahrain, Iran, Sudan among a few others.

Microsoft's move was viewed by many as a calculated step made to appease autocratic regimes so that they could use eavesdropping software to monitor politically sensitive messages. When users of Hotmail use HTTPS, they would receive a notice which says, 'your Windows ID can't use HTTPS because .. account type'. EFF pointed out a trick that the user could easily turn on the feature by selecting a county not effected in the account setting, for example, Japan or Canada.

IT companies often face the dilemma between making profit and user protection. Yahoo knowingly volunteered user information to Beijing's communist regime resulted in lengthy jail time for its users. Google set up servers in China for Chinese market so that they could be technically monitored. Cisco helped the secret police to develop China's Internet traffic monitoring system. Their track record is so bad that everyone question their real intention even when it seems someone is trying to do the right thing. Last year, when Google announced they would stopped filtering search result in China, they were not welcomed, but accused of advancing business in disguise of political messages. They accusers were not disappointed when it turned out that Google never stopped filtering 'sensitive words' in China, although they claimed they had acted.

Interesting Figures on H1B Employers

Since 2001, Goldman Sachs has filed 1022 H1B petitions in Mathematics, made them the No. 1 Visa Sponspor in Mathmatics. Same can be said for Microsoft in Psychology with 111 petitions.

Microsoft China Admitted Making Strike, Regrettably

Microsoft China admitted the behind curtain role in a legal action against software piracy. The Microsoft China chief director of intellectual protection Wu Haitao told media that Microsoft initialized the action which resulted an influential piracy software site, the Tomato Gardens, taken down by Chinese government, its operator arrested. However, Wu assured the media that Microsoft would not take action against individual personal users. Vice general manager of the Microsoft Greater China, Liu Fengming said Microsoft China foresaw a potential backfire from individual users, but didn't expected it to be as bad. Microsoft did not make the move, but rather hired an IP firm which allied several third party software vendor to fire the lawsuit. Nevertheless, the management at Microsoft China found sitting on a burning cushion with all the fingers pointed to Microsoft.

According to a survey conducted by a Chinese portal site, among 100,000 participated, only 5% back Microsoft's anti-piracy effort, while over 80% support the piracy site operator. Liu told the media that Microsoft had long been adopting a 'Three E' doctrine, that is 'Eduction, Engineering, and Enforcement' in China. Liu said Microsoft believe in a 'moderate' approach in intellectual protection. The main controversy surrounding this particular case is the site is individual oriented. So far, Microsoft's anti-piracy actions in China had been mostly targeting government and business clients.

Although government and business clients in China are buying more and more copies of Windows and Office Suites from the company, with China's average income level, it is obvious that the only possible way most individual person would be able to afford a computer at home would be running on a low cost operating system. So far, Microsoft has been maintaining a commending lead in the software market in China by allowing piracy as long as it is for personal use. If the ordinary users sense a tightening control of copy-right enforcement, they may switch to alternative low cost solutions, such as Linux, which Microsoft will be hate to see. Once individual users get used to using Linux at home, they may start trying out Linux at work, and that will be the end of game for the software giant.