Mumbai: The China government, last month, decided to ban the use of Microsoft Windows 8, stating that the vulnerabilities in the operating system is a big challenge to the national strategy for information technology.
According to a report filed on Softpedia, Jiangsu province in south of Shanghai planned to purchase computers running Windows 8 and upgrade the local hardware infrastructure, but due to a notification received from the central government in February, authorities decided to cancel the acquisition completely.
Microsoft has defended Windows 8 stating that millions of users world-wide have already considered the operating system as secure and government officials can always investigate the product for backdoors or any other potential software that could be bundled into the source code and used for spying on users or authorities.
“Our Government Security Program allows governments to review our source code to confirm there are no back doors,” Kathy Roeder, a Microsoft spokeswoman, told Softpedia. “Customers around the world have evaluated and embraced Windows 8 as our most secure operating system.”
Windows 8 was banned for use on government computers across China last month. This move was considered to be China’s method as revenge against Microsoft after they recently cut off the support for Windows XP world-wide. They also responded to the United States over the spying and hacking claims.
The Redmond-based software giant told Softpedia in a statement that, despite the ban, they are still open to any negotiations with the Chinese government. This, so they would continue to discuss with the Chinese government on all possible ways to bring Windows 8 on their computers. In the meantime, Windows 7 is still being offered to authorities, the company said.
