Shouldn't you have to actually BUY a copy of their software before you complain (or sue) about their prices?

I'd say ANYTHING Microsoft could be doing wrong is WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY down the list of stuff China should be worrying about.

Formerly, Piracy is rampant. Microsoft sells for $3 in DVD, while pirates sell for $2 in many cd disks in 2007. China has 120 million PCs and 90% uses windows. Government has to pay for discounted prices, not student price, but that is a gray area. So, a slap on the hand may be just to negotiate a better discounted price.

Microsoft policy is flexible to fight piracy practices. It has a research Lab in China to do chinese version for $3 per copy.

What is next for Microsoft to do, nobody knows yet. There is a possibility that local language versions may be cheaper because of language translation is not perfect, and keyboard mapping is not efficient. So some kind of compromise is tolerated. Even the english version will be discounted by the standards of economical development in various countries. Everyone knows sales volume is price sensitive and dependent.

However, the central plan is to use cellphones for computer productivity(telephony bbs or interactive ipTV ISP) around the world, and software will be mostly cloud computing. Microsoft is already setting up 4 data centers. iPhone may be using more cores of 8 bit RISC(32 bit branch prediction) in DSP and data will be 4 bitstreams of segmented video and audio codes via edgeQam channels in 3/4/5G transmission. Computers and Laptops will be for servers or server management, and server software may hold its values.

It will take a few years, but the handwriting is on the wall for sometime now.

Governments Must Reject Gates' $3 Bid to Addict Next Billion PC Users

,----[ Quote ]
| "Microsoft's strategy of getting developing nations hooked on its
| software was clearly outlined by Bill Gates almost a decade ago," said
| Con Zymaris, CEO of long-standing open source firm Cybersource.
|
| Specifically, Bill Gates, citing China as an example, said:
|
| "Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but
| people don't pay for the software," he said. "Someday they will, though.
| As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours.
| They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to
| collect sometime in the next decade."[1]
`----

http://www.cybersource.com.au/press/gates_set_to_addict_next_billion.html