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Microsoft Businesses Media Television

MS Plans To Cooperate With Chinese TV Maker 213

Posted by timothy from the match-made-in-heaven-with-stars-and-report dept.
zhangyong writes "Microsoft has signed a strategic cooperation pact with China's top television maker Sichuan Changhong Electric Appliances (which claims to be the world's number-two maker of colour TVs, OEM for APEX, etc.), the official Shanghai Securities News (in Chinese) (in English) said on Monday. 'Changhong would receive advanced IT technology and software from Microsoft to develop digital TV sets and other high-technology products.' What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies?"
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MS Plans To Cooperate With Chinese TV Maker More

MS Plans To Cooperate With Chinese TV Maker

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  • "What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies?" Um, HELLO, quality will drop, bugs in software will increase exponentially as a result and Micro$fot will finally die from the burdens of this load and the world will proliferate with GOOD software.

    **wakes up from dream**

    • It's not like mainland China TVs are known for their high quality and reliability anywqay, they're aimed squarely at the "OMG I can get a 27" TV for $200!?!" crowd.

      I look at it like multiplying numbers less than one. If Apex is a 0.7 and Microsoft is a 0.8 [I'm feeling generous] then the resultant TVs will be 0.56.

      • Re:...In a PERFECT world... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by spike hay ( 534165 ) <{blu_ice} {at} {violate.me.uk}> on Monday June 28, 2004 @07:17PM (#9555847) Homepage
        Nonsense. I have both an Apex TV and a DVD player. Both are quite high quality. The TV has an excellent picture. The DVD player can play MP3, SVCD, VCD, straight MPEG, just about anything. Chinese products are not universally shitty.
        • Really? Check out the consumer surveys and you'llfind they are not very highly rated. Now add MS crap to the mix and you can get a BSOD on your TV,not to mention integrated DRM and now the MS Channel is the default station on your TV. Unless MS is giving away the software, wouldn't Linux have been a better choice? If you are trying to be the low cost provider wouldn't you love FREE? On a side note, IP protection in China for the MS software is pretty poor. How long before they clone the software for use in
        • I kept hearing people hyping the Apex units over and over again. So I went and purchased one over at the local Walmart. One word for it: crap. I had all sorts of problems with the unit. Some DVDs with advanded features were impossible to watch on the device. So I tried to return it and Walmart explained I could only exchange it for another. So I did thinking it was just ONE bad Apex. Wrongo again. Same problems. Returned the new one and demanded a in-store credit. Required the store manager to sig
      • > It's not like mainland China TVs are known for their high quality and reliability anywqay,
        > they're aimed squarely at the "OMG I can get a 27" TV for $200!?!" crowd.

        For now. Ask your parent (or more likely, your grandparents). They can tell you all about when "Made in Japan" was a universal by-word for cheap, shoddy junk.

        Chris Mattern

  • What Will Happen (Score:5, Funny)

    by rsmith-mac ( 639075 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @06:28PM (#9555454)
    What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies?"

    Why, the phrase "Blue Screen Of Death" will take on a whole new meaning of course.

  • What will happen when... (Score:5, Funny)

    by kunudo ( 773239 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @06:28PM (#9555461)
    What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies?"

    Cheap + shit == Cheap shit.
    Funny, eh?
  • What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies? That's like throwing gasoline on a man on fire.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @06:30PM (#9555483)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • what happened to the good old asking the kids at school what they watched in the family last night from tv?

      that was nasty. no need for drm either since this way you can catch those who go over the drm....
      • hat happened to the good old asking the kids at school what they watched in the family last night from tv? that was nasty. no need for drm either since this way you can catch those who go over the drm....
        Granted, but people who force their kids to watch Mama's family should be forced to do hard labor :P
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Government DRM (Score:5, Insightful)

      by qtp ( 461286 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @06:44PM (#9555599) Journal
      Doesn't really matter if it's government mandated DRM, or if it's an industry wide agreement. Either way there is a group with a vested interest in controlling what news, ideas, and history we are exposed to controlling what we watch and what we can pass around freely.

      The interest of the two groups (government and industry) are remarkably similar (they depend on each other to remain in power) and dissenting voices will be quieted no matter who is at the reigns of DRM.

      I would not be surprised if the Chinese government is welcoming of this development. Government control over media content there seems to be commonplace there, and DRM appears to be a natural choice to further enforce control over the dissemination of ideas.

      • I would not be surprised if the Chinese government is welcoming of this development.

        I would not be surprised if this has nothing to do with the Chinese government, you pirate scum you.

        KFG

      • China has no property laws now. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by PsiPsiStar ( 95676 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @08:07PM (#9556209)
        I got back from China a few months ago. There are American DVDs everywhere. There was a van going around with 'Intellectual Property Enforcement' written on it... in English only... quite obviously for display purposes. China is probably the biggest pirate nation in the world, maybe second to Russia, maybe not. Combine industrial capacity with a total disregard for property laws.

        I would not be surprised if this is a step by Microsoft to get some Chinese folks with clout ("guanxi" in Chinese or "connections" in English is even more important in China than in the U.S.) That's the only way for MS to protect its IP in China and head off a prospective haven of bootlegged media and DRM flaunting software.

        • Two sides, same coin.

        • And this stuff's coming to the US too!

          Last weekend, I was at a mall (in the US), and there was a Russian guy with a stall (the ones usually selling picture-on-a-mug or Oakley sunglasses) selling these Chinese-made game controllers, which just happened to have 100 NES games loaded onto its ROM. Only $49.99 and you can plug this controller into any TV and play things like Mario, Duck Hunt, etc.

    • Re:Government DRM (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Chops ( 168851 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @07:03PM (#9555761)
      TV networks are about the easiest thing there is to government-control; it's both more efficient and more reliable to control the broadcaster. The Chinese gov't has also displayed a dismaying abundance of good sense when censoring their citizens' internet access: They filter the transmissions at well-chosen choke points, which is (again) efficient and reliable. The MS/RIAA route of controlling the individual computers/TVs is inefficient and unreliable, and it seems like they know it. I doubt they're interested in DRM-enabled TVs.
    • Digital Rights Management will have a whole new meaning. It won't just apply to copyright, but to human rights .
    • Instead of going out for Dim Sum you stay home and watch DRM $um instead.

  • Good question (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Dark Lord Seth ( 584963 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @06:31PM (#9555484) Journal
    What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies?

    Symantec and McAffee stock go orbital?

  • What will happen when low-cost labor in China (Speaking about the TV manufacturing and IT Technology) is combined with Microsoft technologies?

    Digital High Defination Blue Screens of Death?

    • Jesus Christ (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Stevyn ( 691306 )
      Does there have to be a damn blue screen of death joke in every microsoft article? It was funny 2 years ago when people actually got them. Pull your head out of your ass or at least get a sense of humor that people in this century can relate to. Actually, the rating system of slashdot should have modded that down below my browsing level but someone decided to waste a whole mod point on thinking that was funny.

  • MSNBC-Now I know what that acronym stands for (Score:3, Funny)

    by craXORjack ( 726120 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @06:31PM (#9555491)
    Microsoft Now Backing Chinese

    Traitors!

  • That was quick (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ch-chuck ( 9622 )
    Apple announces a big monitor, suddenly this Msft innovation appears.
  • What would happen? I would hope that people could reverse engineer as the DMCA allows for interoperability the technologies in the TV's. It would be nice to have Windows Media 9 playback capability under Linux.
    Or not. :)

  • i18n (Score:2)

    by gokubi ( 413425 ) *
    What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies?

    Unicode friendly worms!

  • M$way? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by midifarm ( 666278 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @06:38PM (#9555545) Homepage
    Is M$ going the way of Gateway? Do they need TV's to turn a profit?

    Peace

    • Re:M$way? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Saeed al-Sahaf ( 665390 )
      Microsoft has *always* been interested in muti-media, for example WebTV, MSN, Windows Media, and so on. We know from recent press that they wish to dominate the home "muti-media center". This China thing makes perfice sense for them. WOrld domination, you know.
  • What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies?


    See subject -EOM-

  • It's obvious (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Yurka ( 468420 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @06:41PM (#9555571) Homepage
    Massive quantities of hardware-based DRM, of severely crappy quality, which breaks in a couple of days. But at least it's going to be cheap.
  • This:

    Microsoft gets to test its DRM in China on a huge populace that has no choice but to except to evil dictates of their pseudo-communist overlords. Once they get some of the major bugs worked out, and the almost major bugs can be papered over, they spring it on the USA just in time for broadcast HDTV, which will use MS DRM and the WMV format.

    Apple went to iTunes and music and won that battle handily, but they're losing the war big time, as the next generation of movie houses will use video projection

    • the next generation of movie houses will use video projection and the WMV file format

      This doesn't really matter, IMO. Movie theatres are already so expensive that I end up going only once per year, and, then, I'm still dissapointed (people kicking my seat, looking through big hair, $5 popcorn, and all the other reasons why watching movies at home is 1000% better--and cheaper--than going to a theatre). If next-generation video discs go to WMA, then I'll most likely just stop watching new movies altogethe

  • MS TV's (Score:5, Funny)

    by SeanTobin ( 138474 ) * <byrdhuntr AT hotmail DOT com> on Monday June 28, 2004 @06:42PM (#9555583)
    Something tells me that the tv's will have mysterious failures of both the red and green guns after they have been deployed.
    • I would think that the Chinese would make sure the RED guns always worked. With Microsofts "help", the Red Screen of Death will be invented. ;-)

      I hope these guys are just going to take more of Microsofts money and walk away like they usually do. We really need to see more deals like the one AT&T got when MS was buying Windows CE into the market. In that deal, Microsoft paid AT&T $5 billion to use WinCE on a few million settop boxes. Which I don't think ever shipped. All the Chinese need to do is pu

  • Not much difference... (Score:5, Funny)

    by tool462 ( 677306 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @06:42PM (#9555585)
    "What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies?"

    Since a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, it won't be much different from high-cost labor in the US combined with Microsoft technologies.

  • Wait a minute... (Score:4, Funny)

    by GeekZilla ( 398185 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @06:43PM (#9555587)
    "Changhong would receive advanced IT technology and software from Microsoft..."

    But where is Microsoft going to get the "...advanced IT technology...?

  • Umm (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sien ( 35268 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @06:45PM (#9555608) Homepage
    What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies?


    Umm, where do you think most PCs are made? The moon? Zimbabwe? Folks, this is the world we live in.

  • Changhong would receive advanced IT technology and software from Microsoft to develop digital TV sets and other high-technology products.
    Now where's Micro$oft gonna get this 'advanced technology' from?

  • This just hype. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by djupedal ( 584558 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @06:48PM (#9555632)
    What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies?

    This 'combination' is far from the first time these two items have come together, and for the record, so far, the first attempts have been feeble - thru no fault of the Chinese, I assure you.

  • owning a TV will never be the same (Score:5, Funny)

    by Grishnakh ( 216268 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @06:48PM (#9555642)
    Unlike the old days, where you just unpacked your new TV, aimed the antenna, and turned it on, you now need to update your TV's operating system to Service Pack 2 as soon as you turn it on, in order to avoid catching a worm. Then you need to install antivirus software and a firewall. Lastly, in order to keep your TV working acceptably, you need to defrag it weekly, and regularly run software to remove spyware.

    Considering the crap on TV these days, it doesn't sound like it'll be worth the trouble.

  • Jeanne Dixon, stand aside... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mr. methane ( 593577 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @06:50PM (#9555659) Journal
    I predict:

    * People will keep buying microsoft products because they like the products.

    * Slashdotters will continue to rant about the evils of microsoft (or whatever company happens to be doing well at the time)

    * Linux will continue being a useful and robust platform that's too complex for the average consumer and incompatible with popular applications.

    • A voice of reason on slashdot. This site must have been spoofed or something.
    • * People will keep buying microsoft products because they like the products.

      People will keep using open source because they like the price, features, freedom, and quality.

      * Slashdotters will continue to rant about the evils of microsoft (or whatever company happens to be doing well at the time)

      Irrelevant. IBM is doing well and I don't hear too many rants around here. You seem to forget that Microsoft is a convicted monopolist. They have essentially been convicted of being evil.

      * Linux will contin
      • The OP missed point four:
        • the zealots will continue to stick their fingers in their ears and shout "LA LA LA CAN'T HEAR YOU!"
      • The biggest application incompatibility problem for me personally is games. I am a sucker for new FPS games, and I also have acloset addiction for on-line games like Planetside.

        Yah, some are available for Linux - but the couple that I've looked at, I get to the part in the instructions where it mentions a few kernel hacks that might be required, and then I stick the CD into the windows box next to the linux box.

        In a work environment, the applications are mostly MS office. Open office is nice, but it does
        • Kernel hacks??? Now, THAT's odd. Unless you're referring to the extra stuff required for the graphics cards? If so, these days the major distros generally handle that for you when you first install the OS.

          That's been the only time I've ran across this particular issue. No big deal, really. Well worth it for the ability to play games like America's Army or UT2004 on Linux. :)
          • Maybe I'm overlooking something pretty basic. I've tried a couple of different games - UT (original) and Quake3. Once on redhat (8.0 I think) and once on Fedora 1.

            First time, I followed the steps to download and compile the loadable modules for a Geforce4. Something went haywire in the new kernel, and it killed X to the point where I wiped and reloaded the machine from scratch.

            Is there supposed to be native 3d acceleration in the OS? Screensavers meant for OpenGL run slowly enough that I don't think they'
            • Unfortunately, for those cards the real issue are the patents that nVidia depends upon belong to someone else. They are not in a position to open source those. nVidia gets around it by creating a small shim that that needs to be compiled into the kernel, then building most of the rest of the functionality in a driver module that interfaces somehow with the shim.

              I've never built a kernel for Redhat or Fedora, so I can't speak to your experience. I have built them for Mandrake, Gentoo, and Debian. As lon
        • The biggest application incompatibility problem for me personally is games. I am a sucker for new FPS games, and I also have acloset addiction for on-line games like Planetside.

          I'm not a big gamer so I can't comment much on this except that gaming doesn't apply to the business world, which Microsoft is trying hard to defend against Linux. Gaming titles made for Linux ought to run fine.

          In a work environment, the applications are mostly MS office. Open office is nice, but it does not have 100% compatibil

  • Watch This Carefully (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ewhac ( 5844 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @06:53PM (#9555679) Homepage Journal

    It seems Microsoft is performing an end-run around the free market again.

    Not so very long ago, during the dawn of the x86 PC, machines were sold without operating systems. You had to buy your own copy. You were likely to ask friends or consult magazine reviews as to which OS was the best buy. As such, there was a possibility that you would buy, for example, CP/M-86 or Concurrent CP/M and not MS-DOS. In fact, there was a very good chance you wouldn't buy MS-DOS, because it was junk, and everyone knew it.

    Bill Gates knew it, too. He knew he couldn't win a fair fight on the retail shelf. So he did the same thing he'd done with BASIC: He took the choice out of the consumers' hands and made deals with PC manufacturers to bundle MS-DOS with the machine. Today, as a direct result of such deals, Microsoft is an oppressive illegal monopoly, and industry innovation has been provably stunted.

    It seems Microsoft intends to repeat the process, this time with in-TV software, in a country not yet familiar with their felonious behavior.

    Watch this carefully. Microsoft has proved repeatedly that they don't give a damn about the end-user, because that's not their customer -- the OEM is, and Microsoft has shown that they can bend OEMs over at will without repercussions. Personally, I don't think this bodes well at all for the future of TV receivers.

    Schwab


    • made deals with PC manufacturers to bundle MS-DOS with the machine

      You might want to read about the deal Gates "forced" on IBM. It was actually the other way around. Gates wanted to make a deal with IBM to include MS-BASIC with the PC, but IBM didn't have an OS for it, which they needed first. Gates suggested IBM go to Kildall of CPM fame. (Gates didn't want an OS business, he was more interested in languages) Kildall wasn't there; his wife and a laywer turned away "Big Evil IBM". IBM kept twisting Gate

      • Re:Watch This Carefully (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Locutus ( 9039 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @07:42PM (#9556029)
        I think you are right in that IBM was the one which handed the monopoly to Microsoft. But, it was Bill and Steve who decided to use anti-competitive practices as the basis for doing business instead of competing by producing better products. MBA's love those guys but techies, mostly dispise them. Gershner once said that Microsoft was a great marketing company and a poor technology company and that REALLY REALLY pissed Bill Gates off. Because he THINKS he's a good geek. And he pays the people around him to make sure he keeps thinking that way. :/

        Anyway, so once the monopoly was established, Microsoft started pounding on anybody who didn't play THIER game and they did this with the OEMs and ISVs. Like the thread parent said, Microsoft want after the suppliers of the product and took the choice from the consumers since they held a bigger hammer over the heads of the suppliers.

        You were both right, just off on the time of the events.

        BTW, Bill Gates' paranoia has made him VERY wealthy, but only because he was handed the monopoly power by IBM( as you stated ). This does not make him a visionary or a genius in my book. Far smarter people built far better and useful tools then has ever come from Microsoft. But they were destroyed by Bill and Steves fear of being shown up. Gawd, just look at their "Facts" tour to see what bull they excrete and look at the state of Microsofts 3 year old Secure Computing Initiative. But that just IMHO.

        LoB
      • Gates on the other hand, has stated that he is always wondering which garage is going to emit something that will undermine the business. I'm not an apologist for Microsoft. The company has done some stupid things. Just not as consistently as the competition.

        The reason he wants to know the location of the garage is so he can start to place pressure on the competition and preferably squeeze them out of the market any way he can. He is actively working against the current "garage" programmers who are working

    • MS-DOS was a fine OS for the 8088 CPU. It was well documented for the user, and there was a lot of documentation available for the developer. Given a choice between the CP/M systems and MS-DOS, people chose MS-DOS (or PC-DOS, as the system that came bundled with the original IBM-PC was called).

      I think where Microsoft first went bad was with MS-Windows 3.0. It was the chance to re-write the kernel and create a 386-aware system. But they gave preference to form over function. It worked. Now it's deeply ingra

      • Your memory seems to be a little fuzzy here. We didn't choose to buy MS DOS. Each PC sold back then was required to be sold with an OS, and that was inevitably either PC-DOS or MS-DOS, with MS-DOS being the one most commonly available. Let me re-iterate, you could not purchase a PC without buying the OS at the time of purchase.
    • Not so very long ago, during the dawn of the x86 PC, machines were sold without operating systems

      Looking through my old copies of Creative Computing, I don't see adds for home, school or small business oriented systems that shipped without an O/S. Ever. No matter what the platform.

  • The better question is... (Score:5, Funny)

    by DerProfi ( 318055 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @07:03PM (#9555759)
    "What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies?"

    The better question is, "What will happen when Microsoft's technology meets China's total disregard for intellectual property rights?"

    The answer is, of course, "Hilarity ensues."

  • Color TVs? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Psymunn ( 778581 )
    which claims to be the world's number-two maker of colour TVs

    Silly Microsoft. Colour TVs are still experimental technology and will never take off. Far better for them to team up with developers of the tried, tested, and true, black and white televion set
  • What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies?"

    All I can say is that they had be better staffing up the Bangalore call center for this right now.

  • cheap products which don't work as expected (Score:3, Funny)

    by Locutus ( 9039 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @07:11PM (#9555811)
    that's what you'll get from a combined MS and Chinese product. But isn't that obvious by now. ;-)

    LoB

  • Pay for Airwaves (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bstadil ( 7110 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @07:12PM (#9555817) Homepage
    As long as there is a requirement that the TV stations pay for the Spectrum they use, they can DRM the TV content until the cows comes home

    Make it expensive and cumbersome to watch TV and we will all be better off in the long run

    Only fools watch something where content and schedule is dictated by commercial interestes that do not have your welfare at heart.

  • webTV????

  • My 2 favorite products. (Score:3, Funny)

    by bs_02_06_02 ( 670476 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @07:29PM (#9555942)
    MS Windows and Apex Televisions.

    I tell ya... there's nothing better than the $89 20" flat screen Apex TV I picked up for xmas 2 years ago. Fantastic picture, well-thought out remote, top quality product. Just like MS Windows.

    I'm kidding.
  • the BSOD will be replaced by a RSOD.
  • I think that Microsoft is imitating Apple's moves in the Chinese market with their own media distribution method.

    MicroSoft's challenge to Apple's iPod [apple.com] is the Microsoft Portable Media Center. [microsoft.com]

    And just as the iPod synchronises with iTunes [apple.com] on a computer, the Portable Media Center synchronises with Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 [microsoft.com] on a computer.

    And in the same way the iTunes Music Store [apple.com] can download music, the Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 Online Spotlight [microsoft.com] allows you to download mus

  • Is This A Trick Question? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Master of Transhuman ( 597628 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @09:01PM (#9556600) Homepage
    "What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies?"

    How about this result:

    1) The labor will get more expensive as they get pissed off working on crap and demand better wages and better working conditions - such as NOT working on crap.

    2) Everything will be over-engineered and quality will drop through the floor.

    3) Security will become even worse than it was.

    4) China will nuke Redmond in retaliation.

    Oh, okay, everything is fine.

  • "What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies?"

    TVs that crash, freeze, and require reboots every so often?

    Seriously, this is GREAT news. The Chinese will steal every ounce of Microsoft's technology it can get its hands on. Then it will produce products based on that technology and sell it for a LOT less money. In other words, China will do for the United States' software industry what it earlier did for our electronics industry.

  • Chinese TV sets from the crypto dreams go real? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BACbKA ( 534028 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @09:18PM (#9556688) Homepage Journal
    Am I the only one that had to gulp on the article headline? In the crypto community, there is a notion of a "Chinese TV set" - a central-authority-controlled computing device that takes part in a distributed computation challenge unbeknowst to the owner, and informs him if he has to report the result suddenly printed on the screen to the authorities (smth along the lines "you've just been randomly selected by the central broadcasting authorities as a lottery winner. Please call this number and read them the following digits to verify your identity (broken key bits encoding follows) in order to claim XYZ Yuan prize"). Perhaps the Chinese govt. finally got the hint and decided to have this really implemented? :)
  • Only we're not too sure who the elephant is here.
    • Refers to the analogy of getting in bed (doing business) with a behemoth, and seems to be saying MS AND China are both so big, it's hard to tell which one would crush the other.
      • Replying to yourself with 'MOD PARENT UP' is a refreshing new low in karma whoring. My nose cone is off to you, my friend.

  • What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies?

    Isn't the Xbox already made in China?

  • Changhong is one of the largest TV maker and it's goverment own. To be precise, owned by Sichun government. Sichun government has been very actively attracting foreigner investor to the province and the province has a population over 100 millions. Intel has spent $400 millions building a packaging factory there and has recently announce to launch WiMax network in Chengdu (second largest city in Sichun).

    What are we looking at is a possible backdoor for Microsoft to introducing XBox2 into China walking the g

  • MS has seen that Linux is gathering support in the far east. They have to stop that. They already know three things:

    1. Leveraging an installed base WORKS
    2. Embrace and extend WORKS
    3. Media and compute devices are coalescing
    4. TVs are more prevalent than computers in the East

    This is my theory:

    They have noticed that leveraging devices from the desktop has failed (by their standards) here in the West - see Windows CE, Stinger, Tablet edition and so on.

    Therefore they must try something else, such as leverag

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