Bill Gates said yesterday that Microsoft Corp plans to invest more in its research operations in China, especially in developing mobile phone technology.
"The mobile market here is quite phenomenal," the Microsoft chairman told an audience of Chinese university students. "That's an area where the United States is not a leader, so it's particularly important for us to look around the world."
Gates' visit to China comes amid official efforts to dilute the dominance of Microsoft's Windows operating system by developing a Chinese alternative based on the open-source Linux system.
Gates said on Tuesday while visiting Malaysia that Microsoft might offer lower-cost versions of Windows for developing Asian countries, though he wouldn't say whether China was included.
Microsoft says its Beijing development laboratory is one of its most successful research centers.
Gates said the company would be spending even more of its US$6.8 billion annual research budget in China, though he didn't give details.
"China has a lot that it can do in using software to modernize its economy and to make a contribution globally to advancing the quality of software," Gates told hundreds of students who filled a cavernous hall at Beijing's Olympic Center.
At a news conference, Gates said he wasn't concerned about China's plans to enact antitrust laws that could target Microsoft.
"I don't expect problems," Gates said. "We already do business in over 50 countries that have laws like that, and we're in full compliance with those laws."
European regulators say Microsoft unfairly hurt rivals by building its multimedia software into Windows -- a finding that the company is appealing.
Yesterday, Gates visited a Beijing school to showcase Microsoft's US$10 million program launched last year to give computers to schools in poor, rural areas in China.
"I was thinking that the computer was something amazing when I was about 13. And I didn't understand why the adults were so afraid of the computer, and I didn't understand why the adults didn't see that the computer was going to change things," Gates said. "So I felt like I had a secret."
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last