Of Google and China

An interesting coupling of Google with China - but not for the usual reasons.

Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, the head of Google in China said:

Open source software affords Google the flexibility it needs to be able to respond to market demands. Since Google can redesign its software anytime, it can follow market changes quickly.

Open source also gives Google better control over sensitive business information. "If we buy software from other companies, they can tell how many servers we have from how many we pay. Now, that's only our own business," Lee said.

Meanwhile, Ni Guangnan, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, spoke of

"taking our fate into our own hands." Ni says that China is promoting open source as part of its strategy of being an innovative country, for national information security, and to solve the software pirate problem. He estimates China's open source industry will boom in upcoming years.