Microsoft's largest beachhead outside the United States is in the state most hostile to it: China. Since arriving in Beijing in 1990, the Gates empire has assembled a network of business operations, from research and development to sales and marketing to customer support, second only to its Redmond, Wash., hub. Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer, whose minutes are managed as priceless commodities, regularly swoop into China for meetings with customers and government officials, trying to find a way to make it in the elusive China market.
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