Microsoft Begins Independent Product Development
in China
Microsoft China, in a first, will start independently
producing and marketing its own software for the China
market. If the products are well accepted in the China
market, they will then be pushed out into other world
markets, including the US.
Microsoft Research has one of its four global research
teams in China. But, until now, their mandate was to support
company initiatives led from Redmond, Washington, the
company's headquarters. The Beijing research team has
contributed significantly to the development of Xbox,
Microsoft's gaming platform, and Windows XP, the current
Microsoft operating system, and to the development of
Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, which recognizes handwriting.
Beijing is also making a significant contribution to the
development of Longhorn, the next generation operating
system which will launch in 2006.
Microsoft China will focus its China products in a few
areas: user interface, including voice recognition, text-to-speech,
digital ink and language processing; wireless communication,
including games over mobile phones; digital entertainment,
including graphics, video processing and animation; and
multimedia. It will partner with local software companies
to create next generation products based on Microsoft's
programming standards, or APIs.
While Microsoft has faced severe competition
from Linux in China, and has never turned a profit
because of software piracy, the company has continued
to expand its hiring there. China's universities produce
more than 600,000 scientists and engineers annually who
work for wages which are usually one-twentieth that in
the US for new staff. Globally, Microsoft has been faced
with slowing revenues because of competition from Linux,
and less demand for new features in Office upgrades, its
flagship application suite.
This step means that Microsoft is now making its first
steps to develop its own independent product and marketing
teams in China, and will transfer more knowledge and experience
there as that market develops.
In fact, Microsoft is behind many consumer product companies,
which already use the Chinese consumer market as a leading
testbed for new products. Compared with the markets of
the US, Europe and Japan, the Chinese consumer market
is relatively free of government regulation, which allows
companies to launch and revise their products in much
faster cycles. When the products are deemed to be mature
for the China market, they are then launched in other
markets.
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