China News recently reported that there was a widespread rumor in the Chinese market that some Chinese government branches had stopped using Microsoft Office and switched to a domestic alternative. This was in light of the fact that recently, the Microsoft Windows 8 product had been officially banned in the government procurement system. Microsoft China responded to this rumor on July 1 by telling reporters seeking clarification that, “as of now,” the Microsoft Office product remains on the normal Chinese government procurement list. Microsoft did not receive any notification from the Chinese government regarding the removal of the Office product. However it won’t be a surprise if the government is beginning to phase out foreign information products in favor of domestic options, especially when information security is becoming more and more of a concern. According to the largest domestic office software competitor, Kingsoft, their company enjoyed a 47 percent increase in office software revenue last year, mainly due to government support as well as sales to large domestic companies and financial organizations.
Source: China News, July 1, 2014
http://www.chinanews.com/gn/2014/07-01/6335627.shtml