{"id":21570,"date":"2012-09-06T13:17:24","date_gmt":"2012-09-06T11:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=21570"},"modified":"2012-09-06T16:30:11","modified_gmt":"2012-09-06T14:30:11","slug":"microsoft-to-boost-china-operations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/hardware\/21570\/microsoft-to-boost-china-operations\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft to boost China operations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Microsoft<\/a> will hire 1,000 staff in China over the coming year, adding to the 4,500 the company already employs in the country, a senior executive said on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The move is aimed at strengthening the company’s position in a market it sees as key to future growth, but where software piracy and regulation remain serious hurdles.<\/p>\n

The new employees will be added in research and development, sales, marketing and services, said Ralph Haupter, CEO for Microsoft’s Greater China operation, speaking to reporters in Beijing.<\/p>\n

The expansion comes as part of a sales and marketing effort by Microsoft that aims to reach potential Chinese customers such as local governments and public institutions, said Haupter, who was appointed Microsoft’s China chief in April.<\/p>\n

The Seattle-based software giant has struggled to establish a foothold in China’s IT market, where consumers can easily buy pirated copies of its software.<\/p>\n

In January, it sued Gome Electrical Appliances Holding<\/a>, China’s biggest homegrown electronics retailer, for installing pirated versions of its software on PCs.<\/p>\n

Microsoft plans to boost China research and development spending by 15 percent over the next year, said Ya-Qin Zhang, chairman of the company’s Asia Pacific R&D group. The company currently spends $500 million annually on R&D in China.<\/p>\n

The new jobs will bring the size of Microsoft’s China workforce close to that of its Indian operations, where it employs 5,800 people across its business units.<\/p>\n

The company is also building a large cloud computing center in Shanghai that will employ around 600 people, said Zhang.<\/p>\n

Microsoft, facing a stagnant global PC market, reported its first quarterly loss as a public company in July, though revenues held up better than analysts expected.<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/strong><\/p>\n

Microsoft might benefit from Apple’s victory<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Apple triumphs over Samsung in landmark patent case<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Microsoft reveals new logo<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Microsoft reports first quarterly loss<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Microsoft starts off financial year a little sour<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Microsoft will hire 1,000 staff in China over the coming year, adding to the 4,500 the company already employs in the country, a senior executive said on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":20606,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[25,423,169],"class_list":["post-21570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hardware","tag-active","tag-china","tag-microsoft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21570"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21596,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21570\/revisions\/21596"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}