What drove Gates to make such a move? In part, he's just trying to strengthen Microsoft's position in the vast China market. But he no doubt had the threat of Linux in mind, too. The open-source operating system is certainly giving Microsoft reason to worry in the West, as a recent BusinessWeek cover story shows (see BW, 3/3/03, "The Linux Uprising"). At first glance, the Pacific Rim numbers would seem to ease Gates's mind. For the Asia-Pacific region excluding Japan, Linux sales were just 1% of the market in 2002, vs. 57% for Windows and 24% for Unix. When measured in shipments, Linux fared better: It had 14%, vs. 78% for Windows.
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