14 DAY TRIAL // The anti-trust probe against Microsoft continues in China, but the company has a new reason to worry about after losing a top executive who decided to leave for a local Internet search firm.
Zhang Yaqin, who was working as vice president and chief of Microsoft’s Asia-Pacific research unit, will join Baidu this week, the Redmond-based software giant has confirmed today.
Baidu has also revealed that Zhang Yaqin will hold the role of president within the company and will be in charge of new businesses, according to a company spokesperson.
Microsoft under investigation for anti-trust violations
Microsoft’s problems in China started a few months ago, when the government decided to ban Windows 8 on their computers, amid fears that the company might actually use the operating system to spy on users and steal state secrets.
The company obviously denied all accusations, but soon after that China decided to begin an anti-trust probe against the software giant for possible violations of competition rules. China claims that Microsoft didn’t share all details regarding compatibility problems of Windows and Office and offered the company a 20-day deadline to answer these accusations.
Microsoft has remained completely tight-lipped on this case, and although it’s pretty clear that China is becoming a hostile market really fast, Redmond knows that it cannot afford to stop doing business in the area.
China developing its own operating system
One of the reasons Microsoft is now under investigation is said to be the country’s intention to switch the focus on local software companies that have no chance to compete against a large corporation.
China is not only pushing for investigations against Microsoft, but is also trying to give local companies an unfair advantage by offering their products as alternatives to the very popular Windows and Office, both of which are leading the software market in the country.
At the same time, Chinese officials are pressuring for the development of a new operating system based on Linux that would boost the transition from Microsoft software. Locally developed Office suits are also being aggressively promoted by the country, even though most users still prefer to stick to Microsoft software.
At this point, Microsoft’s software owns more than 90 percent of the Chinese desktop market, mostly because of pirated copies of Windows and Office. According to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, 90 percent of the licenses sold in China are pirated, despite all efforts to push users towards legitimate software.
The company is still cooperating with the Chinese government to address all claims, so it remains to be determined whether the company has chances to escape without a fine.