Piracy Steals 95% of Microsoft's Revenue in China

[raankh]

Another way of putting it is that Microsoft is overestimating the profit potential in the Chinese market by 95%.

Also, go QQ with your copy of Kipling to all the racist comments. Look at what your own governments are doing before you spout all that bigotry. Likely whatever country you are from is causing as much or more suffering through unjust trade, patent claims, resource hoarding, loan-sharking and warfare.

Sucks to be at the recieving end of unfair trade, huh?

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Poverty is no excuse for piracy.

But there is a fuck-ton of poverty in China.

 

[Plurralbles]

This isn't an issue of software piracy, it's an issue of china stealing everything they can get their hands on.

taht they do, that they do.


As I see more and more, "china risking" stories, I see more of these and it goes to show that china is ridiculously behind in everything but pretty numbers.

edit*risking should be rising

 

[internetzealot1]

Yeah, piracy's easy when the governments doing the pirating.

 

[Waaghpowa]

Does anyone here live in China, or make a wage equal to that of an average Chinese consumer?

Just wondering.

So basically just a bunch of self-important opinions from sheltered individuals. I'm safe in assuming as such, no?

Apparently about 2k RMB, which is apparently above average, a month is more than enough to live comfortably in China, since their cost of living is much lower. Things like food are usually provided for by the government in certain cases.

What some people seem to get confused about is how much money is made. Yes, they make less, but they don't need to spend as much to live.

I'm not an expert on any of this, it's just what I've learned off hand.

 

[subtlefuge]

PCs, like gaming devices, are a luxury. If you can afford them, you can at least wait until you can afford software/games.

 

[Flailing Escapist]

Aren't we like billions of $ in debt to China anyway? I think of this as a small way of paying them back

 

[ninja51]

Microsofts follow up story:

"90% of what Planned Parenthood does is abortion."

 

[MurderousToaster]

...the country's massive amount of privacy was the result of the government's apathy towards IP protection.

I'm going to imagine that "privacy" is meant to be "piracy" there, since if there's one thing people tend to not associate with the Chinese government, it's privacy.

 

[Sparrow]

Aren't we like billions of $ in debt to China anyway? I think of this as a small way of paying them back

Oh man, what if it's all part of the plan? China rolls up in a few years time, ready to screw America over and start WW3... by taking all their money back and leaving America broke so they can swoop in and steal their country!

But then Microsoft is all like "Actually, you owe us freaking billions for all the games you pirated from us, bitches." Yes, that's right, Microsoft saves America, and therefore saves the world.

I think I just wrote the plot to the next Call of Duty.

 

[Kopikatsu]

Of course, there's the counter-argument that PCs are too expensive for most Chinese consumers. Ballmer dismissed this claim by saying, "if you can [afford a PC], you could afford the software"

Wow, Balmer is ignorant.

Apparently about 2k RMB, which is apparently above average, a month is more than enough to live comfortably in China, since their cost of living is much lower. Things like food are usually provided for by the government in certain cases.

Yes, the cost of food is lower. The cost of hardware, however, is about the same as in the most developed countries.

Fair? Probably not.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070310093901AAkAKl3

I don't know, but $100 for that computer isn't too bad.

Well, besides it being second hand. That kinda sucks a bit...

Anyway, according to that, some random dude makes $3,600 a year, which would be about 28,800 RMB.

800RMB would be 2.78%-ish of his total income for a year. My crappy computer (It's new, but it's specs suck and the video card is total crap) cost about $700, and I made about $48000 last year. So...the computer cost me about 1.5% of my total income for the year.

So, almost double the 'actual' cost...but as mentioned, the cost of living in China is much lower. Seems fairly reasonable.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Oh china, you are your people who lack any adhernce to western morals. Oh ho ho ho.

Seriously though, the Chinese government is fucked up and the country reflects this in many ways. I wish they could straighten out the country at some point and actually get things working.

 

[manaman]

Funny that Ballmer says one thing and Gates says another.

Gates pretty much came out and said that they never would have had the foothold they do in many developing countries without software piracy making them the dominate OS. Guess they just want to leverage that foothold now.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

Aren't we like billions of $ in debt to China anyway? I think of this as a small way of paying them back

Oh man, what if it's all part of the plan? China rolls up in a few years time, ready to screw America over and start WW3... by taking all their money back and leaving America broke so they can swoop in and steal their country!

But then Microsoft is all like "Actually, you owe us freaking billions for all the games you pirated from us, bitches." Yes, that's right, Microsoft saves America, and therefore saves the world.

I think I just wrote the plot to the next Call of Duty.

Or another instalment in the Homefront series.

OT: I think that even as much as I hate all piracy, we've got far bigger problems when it comes to China

 

[MorphingDragon]

Oh china, you are your people who lack any adhernce to western morals. Oh ho ho ho.

Seriously though, the Chinese government is fucked up and the country reflects this in many ways. I wish they could straighten out the country at some point and actually get things working.

As corrupt and fucked up as the government is in China, it appears to be working "better" than most western countries.

!@#$, just rumours of China investing in a country makes the value of the dollar jump massively.

 

[theultimateend]

Actually Poverty, poor education, and other social issues steal Microsofts profits.

Piracy is just the symptom to the disease.

But whatever.

Of course, there's the counter-argument that PCs are too expensive for most Chinese consumers. Ballmer dismissed this claim by saying, "if you can [afford a PC], you could afford the software" and further argued that the country's massive amount of privacy was the result of the government's apathy towards IP protection.

If you can afford a PC you can afford software, if you can afford software you can afford accessories, if you can afford accessories you can afford a desk, if you can afford a desk you can afford a house, if you can afford a house you can afford a car.

Somewhere in there you can afford groceries, and clothing, and water.

I'm being silly and skewing his point but it was a dumb thing to say. Can and Could are flimsy ass words that beat around the bush of the problem.

 

[HerbertTheHamster]

Oh china, you are your people who lack any adhernce to western morals. Oh ho ho ho.

Seriously though, the Chinese government is fucked up and the country reflects this in many ways. I wish they could straighten out the country at some point and actually get things working.

This post is funny because China pretty much owns the world.

But shit, how do they pirate so easily there with all the censorship? I thought the government would be completely against this.

 

[crystalsnow]

And then you realize that all of these numbers are pointless because they are theoreticals.

95% of that 95% probably would never have purchased a product in the first place, so the number is bloated to the point of insanity.

 

[Baresark]

I am not soft on Piracy, but that number is complete bullshit. There is literally no way of knowing what percentage of sales is lost through piracy. And the, "if you can afford a computer, you can afford the software to run it" excuse is also a bad line of thought. If you buy the software separately, it can constitute a minimum of 1/6th the cost of the computer.

So, almost double the 'actual' cost...but as mentioned, the cost of living in China is much lower. Seems fairly reasonable.

The cost of living is much lower in China, but real wages are much lower as well. There are quite a few economic boons that have happened in Chine since 1978 (when it started moving economically towards Capitalism), but they are still by and large a very poor nation on a per capita basis. The current generation works and saves so the later generation will have it much more. It's comparable to the "greatest generation" working with the belief the later generation (baby boomers) will have it much better if they save money.

Other things keep the cost of living well below that of it's western counterpart such as low corporate income tax to keep the jobs coming, and no minimum wage. A lot of people think the ladder point is a bad thing, but this actually keeps the goods produced in China at lower cost, and cost of living is held down by this as well. They also have an excellent export/import ratio. It's things like this that have turned them into an economic super power in a short 33 years.

Back OT:Really, the software piracy is due to poor price adjustment for currency and cost of living change. The software costs are for what would only account for the top 20% of the population at most. It's still an economic truth, anything the market does not allow for, the black market will meet the demand.