Chips B . Malroy shared some interesting thoughts about Microsoft last night. We recently explained how to Microsoft and to Apple China is mostly about cheap labour that can be mistreated in sweatshops that exploit China, making it subservient ("creating jobs" is just a degrading euphemism, as "creating slavery" would sound more appropriate a description). Over the past year or so Microsoft also described China as strategic to Microsoft's growth and tightened its political affairs there (a US congressman accused Microsoft of “enabling tyranny”). This carries on this week.
“They will never get paid in China for Microsoft Windows and Office by the masses. Microsoft has educated people on how to be pirates.”
--Chips B . Malroy"As Microsoft has taken control of Yahoo's search engine and replaced it with Bing, Yahoo loses markets. Reaction to using Bing, causes first Japan and now South Korea to abandon Yahoo.
"They will never get paid in China for Microsoft Windows and Office by the masses. Microsoft has educated people on how to be pirates. [...] So far China has banned the defective product known as the MS XBox360 from being sold to Chinese consumers."
China is now coming up with its own console. "According to AFP reports," Malroy quotes, "the device, known as the eBox, will be a controller-free console that will be controlled solely through the use of gestures, not unlike Microsoft's soon-to-be-released Kinect attachment for the Xbox 360."
How can Microsoft survive this? Well, except for the possibility of trademark bullying, there is not much that Microsoft can do. It has already lost billions of dollars on this product and now the prices go further up: [via]
It's been revealed today that Microsoft has increased the price of an Xbox Live Gold subscription by $10, meaning it'll cost gamers $59.99 to gain access to the online service for a year. Of course, gamers opting for the free Silver tier (which doesn't offer online play) won't be affected by this.