Showing posts with label discounting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label discounting. Show all posts

11 December 2007

Up and Down in the Middle Kingdom

It's still very hard to read what is happening in the Chinese GNU/Linux market:

Although China's Linux market as a whole doubled from 2003 to 2006 to $20 million per year, sales of Linux desktop software grew more slowly. In fact, the market share of Linux desktop software in China dropped from 16% to 12% in the same period. But according to CCID Consulting, sales of Linux desktop software increased 25.1% in the third quarter of this year, catching up with the quick growth of China's Linux industry as a whole. Several new developments have added fuel to the growth.

And this is very worrying:

Additionally, the low-cost advantage of Linux desktop software is diminishing. Microsoft has taken a more flexible pricing tack in the Chinese market, offering increasingly better discounts for Chinese computer producers. An anonymous executive of a Chinese computer producer says that his company considered using the Linux desktop OS at the beginning of this year, but eventually went with Windows because Microsoft didn't charge much more than the service fee of Linux companies. He suggested this could be looked at as a victory for Linux, as it had forced Microsoft to lower its price.

How do you say "Pyrrhic victory" in Putonghua?