On Aug. 9, a piece of Microsoft Corp's "severed confession" about China was posted online. According to the news, Microsoft Corp has updated the Microsoft service agreement on the official website, stating that Microsoft Corp will not bear any responsibility or obligation if Microsoft Corp is unable or delayed to perform his obligations due to force majeure. The agreement came into effect on October 1st.

Subsequently, a media survey found that Microsoft Corp's Microsoft service agreement has been described above in at least several versions released since 2016, which is not a new clause in this agreement. Therefore, these two provisions are actually general agreements.

In addition, the provisions are not specific to a single region, and there are similar expressions in the English provisions. Some analysts say that this is just a routine practice for multinational corporations to avoid political risks in their actual business operations.

Behind the panic of the rumors, one is that TikTok and Wechat have been suppressed overseas recently, netizens are quite in a posture that every plant is a soldier, in addition, Microsoft Corp's Windows and Office products occupy an absolutely mainstream position in China, and some netizens tease that "you don't have to go to work in the future".

In addition, the acquisition of TikTok by Microsoft Corp has also attracted much attention. Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft Corp, used the "golden cup poison wine" analogy when communicating with foreign media a few days ago. Gates believes that it is not easy to make a difference on the battlefield of social media.

Some media judged from Gates' statement that he did not approve of Microsoft Corp taking over the successful but "hot" TikTok because he was repeatedly unsuccessful in the social field, because if he was not careful, Microsoft Corp might become a target or tool and be used to talk about things in trade frictions.

However, when it comes to Microsoft Corp, we have to mention the past between it and China.

Pirate survival rule

Gates has visited China 17 times in the past 26 years.

In March 1994, Gates first came to China for the release of the Chinese version of Windows95. Only half a year later, he took his wife to Beijing for a trip, and Microsoft Corp's business in China landed.

Office entered the Chinese market in 1995 and occupied more than 90 per cent of the market share in the following 20 years. In 1999, with the two major businesses of Windows and Office, Microsoft Corp's market capitalization rose to more than US $600 billion, ranking first in the world.

In 2001, Gates announced a series of investment plans in China on APEC in Shanghai, and focused on promoting his first product, Windows XP, as chief software architect, to major domestic PC vendors. Shortly after that, this became a pre-installed system for all PC in China.

With the innovative graphics UI and the redesigned underlying interaction, it is this system that has really achieved Microsoft Corp's hegemony, and XP has become the longest-lived operating system.

According to the share calculated by Baidu, Inc., at present, the market share of Windows 7 system in China is 48.24%. The market share of Windows 10 system has reached 33%, followed by Windows XP, 4.73%, 4.09%, 3.91% and 3.7%, respectively. Windows system still occupies a dominant position in China.

When Microsoft Corp entered the Chinese market, he experienced two major events: one was early Office piracy, and the other was that the launch of Windows in 2017 encountered the "Prism Gate" at 10:00.

First there is piracy, then there is Microsoft Corp, which is the law of Microsoft Corp's development in markets outside Europe and the United States. In 1992, Taiwanese Tian Ben and quietly entered the mainland to establish Microsoft Corp's Beijing office. The main work of the office is to do marketing activities and find agents. At that time, Microsoft Corp was faced with the situation of having users and no income on the mainland because of piracy.

At that time, on the streets of Zhongguancun, small vendors sold all kinds of software CDs, including Windows, Office and so on, for only a few yuan.

After 2002, Microsoft Corp held the banner of anti-piracy and successively won the Chinese government procurement, state-owned enterprise procurement, and large enterprise procurement market, and obtained the cooperation of OEM manufacturers. Microsoft Corp China has changed from the least profitable region in the world to one of the more profitable regions.

For a long time, Microsoft Corp has used the principle of "platform locking", that is, after all the users' work is based on the Microsoft Corp software platform, the migration cost of users is so high that they are finally willing to spend money on genuine copies and give up migration.

Microsoft Corp's authentic implementation, from the government to central enterprises, and then to large private enterprises, and then in a wider range of enterprises to implement the authentic version, and finally to consumers.

In the past, the most traditional speed of Microsoft Corp, Windows and Office business was "revision every three years". Whenever the product was upgraded, Microsoft Corp began to inform the company to buy new legitimate software. If no action is due, the company receives a letter from a lawyer. In the end, it was Microsoft Corp who led industry and commerce to enforce the law.

Rainforest Mufeng and Tomato Garden were once known as China's "two major XP pirated websites", users can visit these sites to download a variety of cracking software. When users pre-install these software, they will load the software that other companies want to pre-install, so that rainforest woodwind and tomato garden can charge a fee.

On August 20, 2008, Hong Lei, the author of Tomato Garden Beautification and revised version of Windows XP and the webmaster of Tomato Garden, a software download website, was detained by the police for examination.

After the "Prism Gate" incident broke out in 2013, the Chinese government had doubts about Microsoft Corp's operating system and even issued documents banning government institutions from purchasing and using Windows 8.

In 2017, the Chinese government special version of the Windows 10 system was installed in some government departments. The system is a customized version of the Win10 system developed by a joint venture between Microsoft Corp and China Dianke specifically for the Chinese government.

It is reported that the government version of Win10 removed Microsoft Corp cloud storage features such as OneDrive in the ordinary version, as well as bundled services such as Xbox Entertainment, and added a local encryption module and some customized security features to ensure the security of the system.

Transformation and Breakthrough

With the PC end to the mobile Internet end of the big migration, but also pushed Microsoft Corp to the transformation. Microsoft Corp's failed acquisition of Nokia and the dismal exit of Windows Phone and social businesses also hinted at his "midlife crisis".

Microsoft Corp entered the "Ballmer era" after Gates announced his retirement in 2008 to devote himself to philanthropy and care about vaccines, toilets and nuclear power plants. After decades of spectacular DOS and WIndowsXP systems, Ballmer suddenly found that Alphabet Inc-CL C could be so powerful, while Apple Inc, the former "little brother", could constantly surpass himself in innovation and performance.

Data show that in 2012, Apple Inc's mobile phone business alone exceeded the revenue of all Microsoft Corp's products. You know, in the last quarter of the 2000 fiscal year, Microsoft Corp earned $6.4 billion, while Apple Inc had only $1 billion.

In July 2014, Microsoft Corp's new CEO Satyanadella put forward the strategic concept of "mobility first, cloud first", emphasizing that Microsoft Corp in the future will no longer rely solely on Windows and Office business, but will shift his core business to mobile Internet and cloud computing.

Microsoft Corp's market capitalization returned to its peak of $600 billion on October 20, 2017. On December 1, 2018, Microsoft Corp's market capitalization surpassed Apple Inc and became the first in the world. This is Microsoft Corp's first return since he reached the top in 1999.

Amazon.Com Inc AWS and Microsoft Corp Azure ranked among the top two in the global cloud infrastructure services market (including Iaas, Paas, and managed private cloud services) in the fourth quarter of 2018.

However, in the Chinese market, Aliyun and Tencent Cloud won half of the market. AWS China partner Sinnet ranked third, surpassing China's two major operators Telecom and Unicom, while Microsoft Corp Azure did not make the top five.

Wei Wuhui, managing partner of Tianqi Venture Capital, once told Chinese Entrepreneur that Chinese companies' understanding of Microsoft Corp is still on Windows and Office, not cloud services.

To this end, Microsoft Corp specially set up a new department in China, the artificial Intelligence Innovation Strategy Department, to reverse the established impression among customers, which is responsible for gluing together the front-end links such as AI research and development, productization, collecting customer demand, driving partner participation, and product development to form a closed loop.

With the transformation of cloud business has been effective, Microsoft Corp began to enter the field of AI, Microsoft Corp Xiaobing is a typical representative. In May 2014, Xiao Bing first launched in China for EQ training, when it was the only global product line in Microsoft Corp's history that did not hatch in the United States.

Microsoft Corp and Huawei signed a memorandum of strategic cooperation on cloud services in September 2017, announcing the conclusion of a cloud strategic partnership, and the two sides will carry out in-depth cooperation in the field of public cloud. On February 23, 2018, Microsoft Corp and XIAOMI signed a memorandum of strategic cooperation to cooperate in the areas of cloud computing, artificial intelligence and hardware products, and helped XIAOMI to upgrade products and services and enter the global market.

At the end of 2019, Microsoft Corp announced that Shen Xiangyang, vice president of the world, would officially resign on February 1 of the following year. This is another Microsoft Corp Chinese executive who left office after Lu Qi left office three years ago. After Shen Xiangyang leaves office, Microsoft Corp's senior management will no longer have a Chinese face, and he will be replaced by Kevin Scott, the current chief technology officer of Microsoft Corp.

In 2004, Shen Xiangyang became director of Microsoft Corp Asia Research Institute, known as the Huangpu military Academy in the AI world. It has successively sent talents such as Ali Wang Jian, Baidu Lu Qi, Zhang Yaqin, Tencent and Zhang Zhengyou, Jinri Toutiao Ma Weiying, and Zhang Hongjiang, who is regarded as the ancestor of the field of computer vision.

Lei Jun also dug up the "number two" Lin Bin from Microsoft Corp, who led Microsoft Corp's Asian Academy of Engineering, developed more than 70 patents in three years, and won Microsoft Corp's highest contribution award-"Venus." Lei Jun also said proudly that "the era of Bill Gates is over." "

"Old friend" Gates

Apart from the fact that Microsoft Corp series products occupy our daily life, its founder Bill Gates has a deep relationship with China. During the epidemic, Gates also affirmed and supported China's epidemic prevention measures many times, and criticized the slow response and confusion of the US government.

In an interview last November, Gates supported Huawei, saying that there is no doubt that China will have world-leading companies in many areas, which is good for the world. Huawei makes cheap 5G products and competes with other companies, forcing them to lower prices or try to improve their products, which is a good thing. Huawei has always been very innovative.

During his many visits to China, Gates has also established deep ties with Chinese entrepreneurs. When Gates first visited China in 1994, on the eve of China's access to the Internet, it was very popular with entrepreneurs in the technology circle.

Gates, who has always focused on philanthropy, has attracted considerable attention in China as well as the "Bobby" banquet. On the evening of September 29, 2010, a charity dinner hosted by Gates and Warren Buffett opened in Beijing, inviting Fox's top 50 Chinese millionaires.

However, in the end, fewer than ten people attended, such as Pan Shiyi, Zhang Xin and his wife, Niu Gensheng and Chen Guangbiao. There is speculation that wealthy Chinese who do not want to go to dinner may be worried about being persuaded to donate. after all, both Buffett and Gates are known for giving naked in the charity circle. The "Bobby" banquet also triggered a collision between Chinese and Western entrepreneurs' ideas on charity.

In an interview, Bill Gates called on China's rich to do more philanthropy, arguing that China lacks systematic philanthropy and that the government should consider policies to encourage philanthropy, such as tax breaks.

Bill Gates gave a speech at Peking University in March 2017, his first live show in China. While talking about public welfare and innovation, he specifically mentioned four entrepreneurs, Jack Ma, Ma Huateng, Chen Yidan and Niu Gensheng. Outsiders believe that this is more of a sympathy for each other in charity.

In fact, as early as the summer of 2014, Jack Ma organized a private dinner to invite Bill Gates and several domestic philanthropists and business leaders to attend. Niu Gensheng also attended the dinner. According to reports, the topic of the informal meeting is about philanthropy in China and the world. Ma Yun said that public welfare funds most want to invest in four areas: environment, health care, education and culture. Gates then lamented on Twitter that this was a "great conversation".

Gates and Tencent also have a lot of contacts. In his speech, Gates made special reference to the "9 / 9 Public Welfare Day" initiated by Tencent. The Gates Foundation also announced earlier that it had officially launched Tencent's official Chinese Weibo Corp, and the Tencent Foundation also signed the Beijing Declaration with the Gates Foundation, promising to set up a standing organizing committee. to ensure that the "International Forum on Social Media and Social Welfare" is held regularly every year, and to make it a platform and bridge for public welfare organizations and Internet enterprises.

Niu Gensheng joined the charitable giving Pledge founded by Gates in 2016, advocating that the super-rich in the United States and around the world can promise to donate the vast majority of their assets to contribute to human philanthropy.

Recently, Microsoft Corp's acquisition of Tik Tok has attracted a lot of attention. In an interview with the media, Bill Gates was asked about concerns that Microsoft Corp might be too close to China on the acquisition of Tiktok, he replied, "We have invested a lot of money in China. We have engineers from all over the world, including China. TikTok's US data will be guaranteed by Microsoft Corp, and we will strive to establish a strong cooperative relationship around the world. Microsoft Corp will not do anything that is considered to be 'malicious'.

"I don't work in the company anymore," he said. We have made a lot of investment in China, and our engineers come from all over the world, including China, of course. "