Microsoft Steps Up Anti-Piracy Effort in China
The BetaNews article “Microsoft Steps Up Anti-Piracy Effort in China” explains that in the mid-2000s Microsoft intensified its fight against software piracy in China by partnering with major PC manufacturers to ensure that new computers sold in the country come with genuine copies of Windows pre-installed rather than pirated versions. These agreements with companies like Founder (China’s second-largest PC maker) and Lenovo were central to Microsoft’s strategy to reduce the extremely high piracy rates in the region, where a large majority of software was widely pirated at the time.
Under these deals, supported by Microsoft leadership as a strategic priority, the Windows operating system and other Microsoft products were to be factory-loaded on most personal and many business machines, increasing the prevalence of licensed software and providing a legal alternative to illegal copies.
While Microsoft did not publicly emphasise piracy in its initial comments, the move was broadly understood as a response to China’s chronic piracy problem, where estimates showed a very large share of software in use was illegally obtained.
