14 DAY TRIAL // China isn’t really the friendliest market for Microsoft and the company’s still having a hard time fighting with piracy there, but it turns out that things are improving in terms of genuine software adoption.
Windows 10, Redmond’s latest bet in the OS world, is quickly gaining ground in China, according to Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president, Windows and Devices Group, Microsoft Corp.
In an announcement revealing Microsoft’s new partnership with Baidu, Mehdi also announced that 10 million computer users in China have already switched to Windows 10, which in their opinion, is quite an important achievement.
“In China, hundreds of millions of PCs operate Windows today and we’re excited to see over 10 million devices already running Windows 10. Our focus has been on delivering a great upgrade experience for our customers,” he said.
But what about piracy?
While this 10-million figure might seem like really good news, Microsoft still has a big problem in China. Most of the licenses used on Windows computers there are not genuine and it would be really interesting to find out how many of these 10 million Windows 10 users actually purchased the new operating system or come from a legitimate copy of Windows 7 or 8.1.
Pirating Windows 10 and bypassing activation come down to just a few clicks and Chinese users are among the most tech-savvy right now, so it shouldn’t be too difficult for them to do just that.
It’s not a secret that previous Windows releases took off in China thanks to these easy methods to install and use them without a license and that’s how Windows 7 and XP are now accounting for nearly 75 percent of the local PC market.
As we’ve told you, Windows 10 doesn’t stand a chance against Windows 7 in China, at least not now, so even though 10 million installs sounds amazing, there are millions of PCs in the country still running older Windows and still using a license that’s not genuine.