You may have heard about Germany’s decision to move away from Windows to Linux on more than 25,000 PCs last year if you follow Linux news closely. Many other countries might switch to Linux from Windows at that time, according to the community. Recently, China announced that it would replace Windows on over 50 million PCs with Linux!
Though both countries have the same end goal, their reasons for doing so are different. The German government did this to save on licensing costs and promote open-source software. China is doing it in order to “remove foreign operating systems” so that their own OS can be maintained.
This is good news for Linux and open-source software, but it is bad news for manufacturers of laptops and PCs, including Dell, HP, and Microsoft, except Lenovo and Kingsoft. Although manufacturers will be forced into becoming “foreign” companies, homegrown companies like Lenovo, Huawei, and Kingsoft could see rapid market growth in the coming years.
Bloomberg intelligence reports the following.
Lenovo could dramatically boost sales on Beijing’s order that central government agencies and state-backed companies replace foreign-branded computers, as reported by Bloomberg News. This would amount to more than 50 million PCs over the next two years. The nation’s No. 1 PC maker relies on U.S. chips, but has set up its own chip-making unit and invested in at least 15 semiconductor design firms.
Nathan Naidu, Bloomberg analyst.
How do you feel about this? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
