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The ban comes as part of China's efforts to challenge Western technology. Chinese software company Kingsoft used to take 90 percent of the market with its Chinese word processing tool, but lost nearly all market share to Microsoft Word when the product entered in the early 90s.
Experts say that the WPS system is the only product that will challenge Microsoft Office's dominance of the Chinese market.
In addition to commercial reasons for protecting local software, there are security concerns. China is placing official support behind the Red Flag Linux operating system, which they trust because the open-source code allows officials to see that there are no data spyholes installed by foreign powers. In response, Microsoft has been on a charm offensive, including granting the government inspection rights over Windows source code and creating a new chief executive position for Greater China.
Recently, China rejected globally-dominant MPEG for its own audio-video compression standard, known as AVS. China is keen to move its IT infrastructure away from the dominance of Western companies and the fees levied by such firms.
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