On March 21, 1994, the noise and restlessness of the day remained in the air at sunset in the Spring Equinox's Beijing city.

A Boeing 747 slowly landed at the capital airport and a young man dressed in an ordinary shirt and coat and jeans and sneakers walked down the gangway: he was accompanied by an interpreter without an entourage.

This young man is the president of Microsoft, the largest software company in the world.Bill Gates (Bill Gates)。

The moment he stepped into Chinese soil, the world caused a sensation, and the eyes of every country in the world were staring at him and watching his every move in China. And Bill Gates and his Microsoft Corp company are also doomed to form an inextricable bond with China.

1 Enter China

In China at that time, on the ancient land, the spring breeze of reform and opening up blew everywhere. Gates came to China to examine China's investment environment and learn about the strength of China's software industry by the way.

When interviewed by senior Chinese government officials, Bill Gates timely and cleverly put forward the idea of "trying his best to help China develop its software industry and so on."

In spite of this, there were still many people in China who were skeptical about the visit of Bill Gates and the upcoming entry of Microsoft Corp into China.

The reason is also very simple: at that time, China's national software industry had just started. If international enterprises like Microsoft Corp were allowed to drive straight in, would it destroy the fragile national software industry?

Some of the media put it even more bluntly. For example, when interviewing Bill Gates, a reporter from China Economic Daily asked impolitely, "I heard that the Chinese industry does not welcome your visit." "

Bill Gates avoided answering this.

The fact is that the size and huge temptation of this market in China were irresistible to any entrepreneur at that time.

In the 1990s, although Internet cafes are still the main battlefield of computer consumption in China, many families in large eastern coastal cities have begun to prepare to "buy computers." According to statistics, by 1995, the sales of computers nationwide will reach or exceed 1 million units, with a total amount of 20 billion yuan.

Although this level of consumption is not high, the annual growth rate of 30% can not be ignored. Soon, China will become one of the largest computer markets in the world.

Faced with the prospect of "entering China", Bill Gates also had something to think about: can Microsoft Corp monopolize China's software market with its great advantage in the operating system? Will China shut Microsoft Corp out on the grounds of protecting its industry? Can Microsoft Corp open up the situation and gain a firm foothold in China?

However, this huge piece of fat in the Chinese market is really reluctant to give up. So he was determined to "enter China."

On December 8, 1994, Bill Gates signed a memorandum of cooperation with the Ministry of Electronics Industry of China, and the two sides reached an intention to jointly develop the Chinese version of Windows 95. Bill Gates will work with the Ministry of Electronics Industry to improve the Chinese font and input methods of Windows 95 in an effort to seize the commanding heights of the Chinese computer market.

This memo is seen as a stepping stone for Bill Gates to open the Chinese market.

2 Pirate edition

Microsoft Corp's marketing strategy in China is divided into two directions: B and C.

On the B side, Microsoft Corp took steps to carry out extensive cooperation with Chinese developers and sellers, while helping to design the computer system used by the government and install a special version of the Windows system that meets the requirements of the government.

On the other hand, the ecology of C-end is not as good as that of B-end.

At that time, the price of a genuine Windows95 was about 1000, and when Win98 was just launched, the price hit 1998 yuan to cope with the situation. At that time, this figure was already close to the house price of square meters in the central area of the eastern coastal city.

How could ordinary people afford it at that time?

This just gives room for pirates.

After each version of the Windows system is launched, it will take a few months or half a year, and pirated copies will come out on the market. A CD of 5, 8 or 10 yuan can be bought in the CD store on the back street of the university.

People who buy pirated copies use cheap and smooth systems, while those who sell pirated Windows run towards a well-off society.

Of course, Microsoft Corp sees these things in his eyes. But at the very beginning, there was no action to stop it. In the view of Bill Gates, under the premise that popularity is not fully popular, and genuine copies are so expensive, these pirates are tantamount to helping him do free advertising.

On July 20, 1998, Fortune magazine published an interview with Bill Gates by Warren Buffett. When asked about Microsoft Corp's China strategy, Gates replied:

"the Chinese won't pay for the software, but one day they will. Since they want to steal, we want them to steal from us. They will be addicted to it, so over the next ten years we will find some way to get them to pay the bill. "

On the commercial battlefield, this is a strategy. China has such a large population and such a large market that it is really covered thoroughly by advertising. I still don't know how much money it will cost.

And laissez-faire piracy, a large number of free systems on the market, so that people on the basis of cheap dependence, and then buy and then charge.
From today's point of view, this game is very much like a routine for Internet companies to spend money to expand their market share.

In this way, Microsoft Corp's market share in China was once as high as more than 90%.

Microsoft Corp's great success has also brought a side effect, that is, Chinese users are extremely dependent on the imported Windows system.

So that after the rise of Apple Inc iMac, many users who bought Mac for fashion had to install a set of Windows-- next to Apple Inc's system.Apple Inc's shell is for pretending to be forced, and the Windows system is for his own use.

In addition, there is an even more terrible side effect-China's domestic system, which has long been curbed and suppressed. Except for the use of state organs or institutions such as the Party, the government and the army, most commercial and civilian computer systems are standard:Windows .

3 Fight against counterfeiting

After tacitly allowing Chinese users to fully enjoy cheap pirated products and creating an inextricable dependence, Microsoft Corp began to crack down on piracy.

In 2006, Microsoft Corp timely sent a letter from a lawyer to Tomato Garden, the pirate with the largest consumer at that time.

On August 15, 2008, Suzhou police arrested Hong Lei on charges of infringing intellectual property rights. This time, setting an example was very successful, and companies such as rainforest woodwind and deep technology have been transformed one after another.

At the same time, many domestic pirated Windows users were surprised to find that the computer would go black from time to time.

This is Microsoft Corp in the name of the authentic version of the practice at that time caused an uproar, causing great disgust among domestic users. Microsoft Corp didn't stop the black screen strategy until the government called on Microsoft Corp to pay attention to reasonableness.

Despite the criticism at that time, domestic consumers basically acted as if nothing had happened after the storm. After all, the formation of habits made it difficult for them to make changes; moreover, China did not have a decent operating system.

A large part of the sales of the domestic computer industry comes from the procurement of the B side, whether it is the government or enterprises. Domestic Linux system has been mentioned, at that time, the application ecology of the system is still a blank, causing many manufacturers to uninstall Linux and install pirated Windows.

With Microsoft Corp stepping up efforts to crack down on piracy, more manufacturers have to use genuine Windows.

In the year when Microsoft Corp began to crack down on piracy in China (2006), domestic computer companies such as founder and Tsinghua Tongfang visited the United States and purchased a total of 1.7 billion US dollars of orders from Microsoft Corp, which was also seen by the industry as a signal: apart from Microsoft Corp, there is really no suitable system vendor in the market.

Chinese users struggle to choose between piracy and genuine copies; there is only one thing to choose: the Windows system.

In May this year, Baidu, Inc. statistics showed that the market share of China's Windows10 system reached 33%. The market share of Windows10 7 was 48.24%. That is, Windows10 and Windows7 have a combined market share of more than 80 per cent.

Not only the system, the Office series of Microsoft Corp office software also occupies the mainstream market in China. In 2019, the number of Office365 enterprise subscribers reached 166 million, and the number of individual subscribers was about 34.8 million, and showed a continuous growth trend.

Today, we have to admit that during his more than 20 years in China, Microsoft Corp has basically swept away all local and international competitors and is dominant in the Chinese market.

In other areas, such as the mobile phone market, despite Apple Inc's arrogance, there is still competition from Samsung Huami OV. Computer system, almost all computers are equipped with Windows systemAnd iOS, it can be said that those who will iOS will certainly Windows; while those who will Windows will not necessarily iOS.

In this regard, we can not help but ask, where on earth is the domestic system?

4 Domestic

In fact, China has made an early start in the development of computer systems.

In December 1969, Peking University began to take the lead in attacking 150 machines, the earliest operating system in China. The purpose is to improve the calculation of oil exploration data and increase the oil production rate of drilling wells.

Twenty years later, in 1989, the COSIX system project was launched. Limited to the substantial backwardness of the domestic hardware at that time, the system research and development could not keep up with the technological update, and could not be compatible with the most advanced electronic equipment, so the domestic system stood still for a long time.

Developing a system is a way of high input, low output and high risk. The country has no money and no policy support, and even if a huge amount of money is invested, with the giant Microsoft Corp, it is uncertain whether their own domestic system can be accepted or even profitable in the future.

With regard to the difficulty of system development, give an example.

Windows XP has 40 million lines of code, Windows 7 has 50 million lines of code, Linux kernel version 3.6 has 15.9 million lines of code, while Linux's distribution Debian system has 65 million lines of code, and these codes are the result of repeated streamlining by software manufacturers.

In terms of funds, Microsoft Corp spent more than $20 billion on R & D on the development of Vista, and Linux only estimates that it will cost billions of dollars according to the scale of personnel input.

Therefore, in the era dominated by the idea of "making quick money", adhering to "borrowlism", relying on Microsoft Corp's ecology and realizing revenue quickly became the way for most people in the computer industry at that time. Basically, no one will choose the road of domestic production.

This situation continues until 2018.

In 2018, with ZTE being beaten hard, people realized that our electronics and software industry for so many years had been built on the foundation of others. Once the foundation is removed, all the buildings above will collapse.

As a result, domestic substitution began to be mentioned, and the fire of the independent rise of the operating system in China was ignited.

However,In China's computer industry, which has been ruled by Microsoft Corp for many years, even the courage of domestic independent research and development in the early 1990s has been lost, and high asset prices have emptied the body and mind of young people. It will take time for independent research and development to make great strides in a short period of time.

5 Wake up

On August 9, 2020, a rumor spread in low intensity on the Internet. Said Microsoft Corp renewed the service agreement on its official website.It is stated that if Microsoft Corp is unable to perform or delays the performance of his obligations due to force majeure, Microsoft Corp shall not bear any responsibility or obligation.

To put it bluntly, if I don't provide you with the Windows system one day, it's not my fault.

Although it was later discovered that this is not the latest clause, but an exemption clause that has appeared in Microsoft Corp's agreement for many years.However, at a time of lightning and thunder in Sino-US relations, it was like a thunderbolt in a clear sky, awakening 1.4 billion of the public.

In a trance, people realized that if Microsoft Corp stopped supplying the Windows system to us one day, most of China's computers would not be able to turn on, chat, shop online, work or invest in stocks. This is even more lethal than the loss of supply on a chip.

Although Microsoft Corp quickly issued a clarification statement on this, saying that "the commitment to provide services to Chinese users is firm," there is still speculation that Microsoft Corp urgently revised the agreement because he was afraid that TikTok and Wechat would happen to him again; then if the US government issued an injunction on Microsoft Corp, requiring him to cut off the supply to China, Microsoft Corp did not need to provide compensation.

When Microsoft Corp entered China 30 years ago, no one would have thought that today, China and the United States would fight each other. Today, it seems that over the past 30 years, the Chinese have become extremely dependent on Microsoft Corp and Windows systems, and Microsoft Corp has successfully suppressed China's local computer system industry.

Admittedly, if the US government asks Microsoft Corp to cut off his supply to China through administrative instructions, then Microsoft Corp's marketing and profits will hit the streets by a large margin, but in the context of a great power game or even an arms race, politicians do not care about the survival of one or some of their own enterprises for the sake of national interests. On this point, we should not cling to the naive illusion that "Trump is a businessman" and avoid facing the complex and harsh struggle between great powers.

Microsoft Corp's 30 years in China has made it convenient for Chinese people to improve their living standards and internationalization, but domestic computer systems have never been able to thrive.

Is this a plot by others, or is it our own carelessness?