Delusional behaviour
“If the KFTC enters an order requiring Microsoft to remove code or redesign Windows uniquely for the Korean market, it might be necessary to withdraw Windows from the Korean market or delay offering new versions in Korea unless the remedial order is stayed or overturned on appeal,” Microsoft said.
M$ has paying customers in Korea? o_O
Hint that being mean to Microsoft could bring country X’s desktop and server software industry to a halt.
Yongsan Electronic Market, baby…
Update:
Brendon Carr has something to say about this by way of The Marmot’s
October 30th, 2005 at 7:01 pm
I blogged the subject before they shut me down for not paying my bill (will have to Monday), but I think the last thing Microsoft wants is to force the most wired country on Earth to find alternative OS’s. So it ain’t gonna happen. MS _needs_ Korea to be using Windows, if only to be able to sell applications.
October 30th, 2005 at 11:12 pm
While there *may* be paying customers, Korea is a Little China on the subject of software piracy. The market could be huge, comparatively, but the only reason so many people use M$ software is because ‘puters came and still come bundled with the OS and “other” software. Look at the Office suite, which has a microscopic market share compared to other countries – and that includes the pirated copies. Word has a reputation of not handling well Korean [that would be mainly old Korean, which is used by 0.001% of the population anyway]. Excel is even further behind – except in companies of course. As for Access, it’s the great wide unknown.
In my days dealing with libraries, we never ever got one title list in Excel. They were all tables in Arae Hangul – which is quite a show of glutonny in self-punishment. We sent them Excel files back. And by some weird freak of life, they could read them – Office came “pre-installed” [read pirated] on their machines, but they never had a use for it. Unless those bastards subscription agents forced them to use it, that is
Even ISPs are moving from Microsoft. Try to find today a startup ISP with Microsoft servers. It’s all Linux out there. Commercially speaking, M$ doesn’t have much of a market there, and especially not for applications. The only reason they would want to stay their threat is the official market share figures – certainly not sales…