China's Government, State-Backed Firms to Scrap Foreign PCs Within Two Years:
In a bid to support local PC makers and software developers and reduce the impact of any potential future sanctions from western governments, China's government this week reiterated its order to replace foreign-branded PCs and programs used by government agencies and state-backed companies with local technology within two years.
While replacing a Dell running Windows with a Lenovo running Linux sounds tempting for Chinese companies, it looks like the country has been failing to do so up to this point, but the renewed initiative appears to have more teeth.
Chinese central government authorities this week ordered government agencies and state-owned and state-backed firms to stop using foreign-branded computers and software within two years and replace them with locally developed hardware and software, reports Bloomberg. Eventually, the mandatory program will be extended to provincial governments and give them a two-year switch period. The aggressive plan requires the replacement of at least 50 million PCs used by central government agencies alone, notes the report.
There are several reasons why the Chinese government wants the country to switch to local technologies. Firstly, it wants to keep Chinese money in China and not see it headed to foreign companies. Secondly, after learning from the Huawei crackdown lesson, it wants to ensure that it does not rely on technology developed and built elsewhere. Specifically, technology that could be barred from being imported to China. Thirdly, it wants to strengthen the security of its agencies and commercial entities.
The vast majority of PCs sold globally are assembled in China, but they carry brands of American or European origin. The Chinese government and state-owned corporations also use China-made Dell and HP-badged computers. Still, it looks like Beijing only wants to see local brands — Lenovo, Inspur, Founder, Tsinghua Tongfang — in state offices and state company offices.
Being the world's largest PC maker, Lenovo can certainly produce enough computers to satisfy the demands of central and eventually local governments and state-owned and state-backed firms. Companies like Founder, Tsinghua Tongfang, and Hasee can certainly increase their output, too. Local electronic manufacturing services (EMS) providers like Foxconn Technology will certainly be glad to help (and offset dropping orders for China-bound PCs from brands like Dell and HP).
[...] In general, building PCs with Chinese brands on them is not a problem for Chinese manufacturers. The biggest challenge — and one of the main reasons why China still relies on foreign technology — is replacing American and European software with Chinese alternatives.
Related Stories
'This trend looks irreversible,' supplier exec says of tech industry's production shift:
Dell plans to cease using chips produced in China in its products by 2024 amid concerns over tensions between the U.S. and China, reports Nikkei citing sources familiar with the PC maker's plans.
It is unclear whether Dell can indeed replace all chips made by companies like SMIC and Hua Hong by next year from all of its designs and how this affects its costs.
[...] There are several reasons why Dell wants to stop using chips produced in China in its products. First up, the company will diversify its supply chain. Secondly, U.S. lawmakers late in 2021 considered banning devices that feature chips made in China from using by government organizations due to national security concerns. The government did not proceed with the idea, but certainly Dell wants to ensure that its gear does not get banned by U.S. legislators even if they prohibit usage of hardware featuring China-made chips by government agencies, which are among its major clients.
[...] All large U.S.-based PC makers transferred their production to China in the recent couple of decades, which helped to create a fully-fledged supply chain in the country. But rising labor costs in China and growing tensions between the People's Republic and the U.S. have urged PC makers to diversify their supply chains.
Apple reportedly plans to produce some of its MacBooks in Vietnam starting 2023, whereas numerous server makers are transferring their production to Taiwan. Even Foxconn, the world's largest contract maker of electronics, has been establishing presence in India and Vietnam for a while, which is not easy as Vietnam still lacks sufficient engineering talent.
Related:
- China's Government, State-Backed Firms to Scrap Foreign PCs Within Two Years
- Foxconn to Shift Some Apple Production to Vietnam to Minimize China Risk
- China Trade War Could Push iPhone Contractor Foxconn to Build in Mexico
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2022, @04:11AM
rawr! look here buddy no more of that okay son wait wtf where did king terry a. davis go never you mind it's time to eat some fruit. okay. hey this is good i like it what is it?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Tuesday May 10 2022, @04:14AM
Perhaps they just need some more incentive and pressure. Include computer and OS in the social score algo. Not running Chinese stuff? Massive negative impact. That sure would speed things up ...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 10 2022, @01:56PM (4 children)
When it's commodity tech they want, users will find a way to get it regardless.
https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-su34-jets-basic-gps-receivers-taped-to-dashboards-uk-2022-5 [businessinsider.com]
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2022, @02:27PM
Having spent nearly 2 years living there, there is a reason why they prefer foreign brands, the local ones are usually garbage. The foreign ones might also be garbage, but that's usually just if they're counterfeit.
This isn't about keeping money in China, this is about the government being able to get their own backdoors in without writing about NSA ones. Keeping money in the PRC would make it harder to maintain their grip on the country.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday May 10 2022, @03:11PM (2 children)
And users are dying for... Microsoft WindowsTM?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 10 2022, @03:20PM (1 child)
Quite literally, wasting their lives on the retraining treadmill - dying slowly inside....
Slightly more seriously: in some fields, MS is the global standard and you can do your business more efficiently and with greater prestige using MS tools. Not the fields I have chosen for my career, but there are certainly a lot out there where that is true.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2022, @04:52PM
OSS has treadmills for wasting lives too. Plenty of OSS stuff changes significantly about every 2 years "just because" - e.g. you have to keep changing your code/app just to keep up with the changes.
Trying to build anything serious and complex for long term on such stuff is as stupid as building a skyscraper on a foundation that shifts every 2 years.
Now in the past Microsoft was pretty good at maintaining backward compatibility. If you picked something like .Net 3.5.1 you could build on that for more than a decade (in fact .Net 3.5.1 has backward compatibility with .Net 2.0 ).
Same for if you had hardware in 2009 the driver and the same model of hardware (if it doesn't break down or you can find replacements) would have kept working for 10 years. Can't say the same for Linux - they'd ask you to go compile the driver yourself even if the company has gone out of business and never provided the source.
But Microsoft no longer seems as interested in backward compatibility.
Maybe the mainframe bunch will have the last laugh.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2022, @01:58PM (3 children)
first i thought about a snide comment along the line of "oh good! this way we have at least two fascistic computing hemisphere to chose from" but i think it just amounts to not adding the "dell" or "apple" or whatnot sticker on them cases that have "made in china" punched into the case anyways.
this will bring back "sticker adding jobs" to 'murika :P
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday May 10 2022, @02:49PM (1 child)
My own snide took the form of, "Now the US should follow suit!"
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 3, Informative) by ikanreed on Tuesday May 10 2022, @03:13PM
We did it first, dummy. [zdnet.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2022, @09:50PM
See the story, a few stories up, about US banning exports to Russia.
(Not to trivialize the invasion of Ukraine but China has smelled the wind.)
Cold War 2.0 is well underway.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2022, @07:24PM
Almost all western made commercial software phones home, and so is just one NSL away from being spyware, if it isn't already.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday May 10 2022, @09:45PM
This, to me, is the start of the end of Microsofts monopoly: China is going to say "If you want to do business with us, you will be Linux and 'Chinese open source software' compatible".(Chinese open source software being who knows what.....)
Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Tuesday May 10 2022, @10:31PM (2 children)
Back in the 20th century this would have been no big deal - a 2 year old computer would be showing its age and about ready for replacement anyway.
Today though? It's been over a decade since since a decade-old computer has been at a significant disadvantage running the all the latest office software, and I can only assume institutional purchasing schedules have adapted accordingly.
Given the breadth of state-backed companies in China, this likely means a huge number of computers being replaced long before their service life is over. I can only hope all those perfectly good computers find a good home through the second-hand market... But that would mean even more expense to remove or securely wipe the hard drives. I guess we'll see how that much-vaunted Chinese social-mindedness fairs in a direct confrontation with corporate greed.
As for changing the software... as much as the Linux geek in me rejoices at the associated increase in market credibility, the migration and retraining costs, not to mention lost productivity while people get used to the new software, make the cost of hardware replacement pale in comparison.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Wednesday May 11 2022, @08:22PM
It's not as insurmountable as it seems, there was even greater gap between DOS and windows 95, also some between different versions of windows.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2022, @09:12PM
Displays will always keep the cycle going. Everybody, and especially management, wants (absolutely needs!) more pixels, bigger and brighter displays, curved displays, etc., and that means new graphics cards or motherboards, so, eh, it's easier to just buy a new computer.