MS is keeping software sales, but handing search, distribution, cloud, backup and mapping services to what is effectively a Chinese google? How exactly do they expect to make money from this?
There's billions of people in China. It's a huge market. They'd rather play gimped rather than not play at all. Unfortunately for China, their governmental sanctioned monopolization of businesses is stifling their own innovation. It's the reason why, with so many people, practically nothing worth-while comes out of China as far as new inventions or technology goes. Whether it be software, industrial, manufacturing, health care, what have you, China is at the bottom of the pack. To acquire those things, they either have to buy, copy or steal them. And they do all three relentlessly.
Now if you're Chinese, you may think to yourself, "Good for them, then." And while it's good in the short-term, for most things, the "getting there" is potentially as valuable, or even more valuable than the end result. It allows you to improve upon things and make further innovations. It builds a foundation for further innovation. If you don't have that foundation, you're just leaving yourself further and further behind. We can see this happening right now.
I'm certainly no rabid pro-capitalist (I actually tend to lean towards socialism, specifically social democracies) but I won't deny the benefits of capitalism and its effects on a culture. It's actually why I'm pro-social democracy - I understand there are benefits to each political and economic system and think a social democracy takes the best of both worlds while minimizing (but not completely eliminating) the negative aspects.
[http://www.pcworld.com/article/2985902/windows/microsoft-cut...]