The necessity and urgency of localization from the perspective of Microsoft’s cessation of supply to Russia

Author | Liu Zhiyong

Planning | Tina

Microsoft cuts supply to Russia

On June 19, according to several overseas media reports, users in Russia could no longer download Windows 10 and Windows 11 system installers normally.

Currently, when users in Russia try to download the Windows 11 system installation image from the Microsoft website, this prompt appears: “Error: There is a problem with your request. For assistance, please visit the Microsoft Support Contact page”. If you try to download Windows 10, you will get an error: “404 – Not Found”, and the so-called 404 means that the file or directory cannot be found.

According to reports, starting in mid-June, users in several regions of Russia have reported similar problems. However, users in Russia have found that they can download normally through a VPN connection. This means that Microsoft has imposed strict access restrictions on IP addresses in Russia. CNEWS confirmed that when users in Russia use VPNs, if they are connected to VPNs in Europe and the United States, there will be no problems when downloading mirrors and applications, and they can be used normally; but when using a Russian IP address, they will get an error prompt;

Will Microsoft stop supplying China?

As we all know, Microsoft Windows is the leader in the global desktop operating system market. Although in recent years, due to the influence of macOS and open source operating systems, the market share of Windows has been declining from 2009 to 2022, but the Windows system still occupies 75.54% of the global market share in May 2022.

This incident is a wake-up call for our country. Microsoft almost monopolizes the domestic desktop operating system market. Once Microsoft completely cuts off the supply and is no longer responsible for security maintenance, domestic Windows users will be in a state of no protection. Since the US intelligence agency has mastered a large number of vulnerabilities in Windows systems, the information security issues of domestic Windows users cannot be ignored.

Considering the current relationship between China and the United States, it is not ruled out that the West will treat us like Russia in the future. People without far-sightedness must have immediate worries. Domestic agencies and enterprises should accelerate the independent and controllable domestic replacement of Windows and databases.

There are only zero and countless times of “blocking”. Once Microsoft really sets a precedent for Russia, then no one can guarantee that they will not be the next one. It is reported that the current global operating system is basically monopolized by Microsoft Corporation of the United States, and more than 90% of computers in my country are also equipped with Windows system, which is equivalent to being stuck in the neck by Microsoft.

Microsoft seems to have long been prepared to cut off supply to China. Microsoft updated the Services Agreement on August 1, 2020, with clause b of the Limitation of Liability Clause stating:

Microsoft is not responsible for Microsoft’s failure to perform or delay in performance of its obligations due to circumstances beyond Microsoft’s reasonable control (for example, industrial disputes, force majeure, acts of war or terrorism, malicious sabotage, accident, or compliance with any applicable law or government order). No responsibility or liability is assumed for this.

Considering the background of the US’s severe crackdown on China’s technology industry in recent years, some people interpret these terms as Microsoft “leaving a way back” for itself, and will cut off its supply to China without any compensation.

The road of domestic operating system and database

In recent years, due to the interruption of Huawei’s supply, coupled with the impact of the international situation, more and more companies and developers, such as Kirin, Tongxin, Huawei, etc., have devoted themselves to the research and development of domestic operating systems. , breaking the “passive” state of the operating system field.

With the rise of open source, replacing Windows is no longer as difficult as it seems in the past. However, in the era when China’s core technology stacks are blooming everywhere, how to improve the functionality, stability, compatibility, experience and ecology of domestic basic software Equal dimension is not only a problem that we need to solve urgently, but also the breakthrough of basic software.

Since 2009, Windows’ market share has been declining in the competition. On the one hand, Apple’s macOS has brought strong competition; on the other hand, the endless open source operating systems have brought unlimited possibilities to the operating system market. A trend is not surprising.

In recent years, many countries around the world have begun to abandon Windows and use open source operating systems. For example, in 2003, Munich, Germany launched the LiMux project (“Munich distribution” based on Ubuntu), intending to integrate all government office systems and civil servants. The personal computers of 2018 have been migrated from Windows to open source software platforms; the Korean government has supported the local open source operating systems based on Linux, Gooroom, HAMONIKR, TMAX OS, etc.; some parts of Turkey have implemented the locally developed Linux distribution Pardus…

Back to the question itself, if the basic software such as Windows and databases are cut off in China, what will be the impact?

In the domestic desktop operating system market, Microsoft has an 87.5% market share in China, while the domestic operating system is still in its infancy. However, regardless of whether Microsoft may impose a ban on China, China must increase the market share of operating systems with independent intellectual property rights. Judging from the fact that Russia was completely blocked during the Russian-Ukrainian war, its own destiny cannot be controlled by others. In recent years, the development of China’s localized industrial chain has made breakthroughs in the three fields of chips, operating systems, and databases in the IT field. A number of domestic companies have gradually grown up, such as Feiteng and Loongson in the chip field. Kylin and Tongxin in the field of operating systems, as well as many domestic database manufacturers.

According to the statistics of the Prospective Industry Research Institute, the current localization rate of chips and operating systems is still low, only 0.5% and 1.2% respectively in 2020, but the localization rate of databases has reached 50%. This has something to do with the “Go to IOE” movement that has emerged many years ago. In the database field where Oracle is located, the process of its domestic replacement started more than ten years ago.

In 2009, Wang Jian, the founder of Alibaba Cloud and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, set a goal that seemed very radical at the time: in Alibaba’s core systems, IBM’s minicomputers, Oracle’s databases, and EMC’s storage were no longer used— Also known as “go to IOE”.

In 2013, Alibaba’s last minicomputer went offline; in July of the same year, the Oracle database went offline. So far, Alibaba has achieved milestone success in the “Go to IOE” campaign.

It is not easy to be autonomous and controllable, and domestic substitution is not easy, and the “de-IOE” movement is also a very slow process. At the 7th China Database Technology Conference held on May 12, 2016, Wu Chengyang, vice president of Oracle Corporation, mentioned a set of data in his speech: Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft are the top three in China’s database market, among which Oracle Occupy 56% of the market share. At the conference, Wu Chengyang repeatedly emphasized that the “Go to IOE” campaign would not have any impact on Oracle, but he also admitted that the “Go to IOE” campaign taught Oracle how to get closer to users.

Even today, Oracle still occupies a mainstream position in China’s government, banking and other markets, which is a historical legacy. For example, in 2021, the Postal Savings Bank of China announced a database procurement project and proposed Oracle as the only supplier, on the grounds that “currently, multiple core production systems of our bank use the Oracle database for storage and processing, which cannot be replaced.”

From a technical point of view, domestic databases have been able to keep pace with established companies such as Oracle in terms of performance. For example, OceanBase, a database independently developed by Alipay in 2019, broke the world record held by Oracle for 9 years and surpassed Oracle for the first time in the TPC-C test known as the “Database World Cup”.

However, domestic substitution in technology does not necessarily mean that it is feasible, and more human, property and other expenditures are needed to reach the international advanced level. Someone once said: “The database is like the heart of a person. Who would think about changing the heart when everything is okay? To put it bluntly, it is a thankless thing.”

Therefore, the breakthrough of domestic databases often adopts the strategy of “encircling cities from rural areas”, and firstly replace foreign databases with non-core systems of non-financial customers (financial companies are the main customers of the database), so as to demonstrate their own strength. .

Today, domestic databases have gradually gained a firm foothold in the local market. The attitude of domestic enterprises to domestic databases is to do everything they should, which has become a trend.

According to IDC’s “China Relational Database Software Market Tracking Report for the First Half of 2021”, in the traditional deployment model market, international manufacturers still dominate, but their share has begun to gradually decline. Huawei and Microsoft have market shares of 26.7%, 14.7%, and 7.6%, respectively; and in cloud databases, Alibaba and Tencent occupy the top two positions, with market shares of 44.7% and 17.4%, respectively. Domestic databases occupy an absolute lead. .

Although Oracle still plays an important role in China’s database market, technological changes are taking place quietly. This impact on Oracle is no less than the “de-IOE” movement, and it also makes us rethink the context and practical significance of domestic substitution.

Open source is becoming a big trend in the database space. According to data from DB-Engines, by the end of 2021, open source databases accounted for 51.7% of the 383 databases in the world, up from 35.5% eight years ago, and in January 2021, the proportion exceeded that of commercial databases for the first time; among the top ten databases , the open source database occupies 6 seats.

At the same time, the combination of open source and cloud services has also allowed open source databases to find an excellent business model. Since 2018, the Altas database cloud business released by MongoDB has been developing rapidly, and the cloud-native model has promoted the vigorous development of open source software. After the epidemic, the way of digital work around the world has accelerated the growth of cloud services, jointly promoting open source Accelerated integration with cloud services.

However, many domestic database systems are not truly independent and open source, but are modified on the basis of the open source database MySQL, which is owned by Oracle. Therefore, in extreme cases, MySQL may also be cut off.

Some open source databases based on independent research and development have been born in China, and they have performed well. Among them, in the annual ranking of global databases representing the activity of open source projects in 2021, the distributed database TiDB from China and the time series space big data engine TDengine occupy the third and sixth places in activity.

Therefore, in the domestic market, domestic substitution is necessary and politically correct.

From a global and domestic perspective, the database industry is accelerating the reshuffle, and Chinese database manufacturers are catching up with the major opportunity period for the transformation of the database industry. With the help of open source and cloud computing, Chinese databases have the opportunity to occupy a place in the global market. How to seize this opportunity is something worth working hard on in addition to domestic substitution.

The Necessity and Urgency of Localization

Today, such opportunities occur in databases; tomorrow, similar opportunities will occur in other “stuck neck” areas.

If Windows and databases are a warning to China, then the US recently released export control regulations in the field of cybersecurity that require US companies such as Microsoft and Google to share information on cybersecurity vulnerabilities with 48 countries and regions including China. You must first apply for and obtain permission from the relevant U.S. authorities. Obviously, the United States is using Microsoft, Google and other US companies to “sanction” China’s cyber security field in disguise.

“There is no national security without network security.” Whether the most basic and bottom-level system software such as operating systems and databases can be replaced by domestic products will affect the autonomy and control of China’s entire Internet ecosystem. At present, the advantages of Windows are obvious to all. The huge initial investment and the difficulty of establishing an ecosystem, as well as the strong patent barriers of the successful ones, make it difficult for the latecomers. But it should also be noted that Apple and Google have found a living space in the mobile Internet tide by relying on innovative models such as “free operating system + application store fees”. In the era of cloud computing, big data, and the Internet of Things, all kinds of smart terminals, wearable devices, and even home appliances, automobiles, etc., will become necessary terminal products for people, which breeds opportunities for the rise of cross-terminal and full-scene operating systems. , is waiting for the tide to grasp. At the same time, “money can’t buy technology, and the market can’t buy technology” has become a social consensus, the national strategy to strengthen the country through the Internet is constantly releasing policy dividends, and “domestic substitution” has become a hot topic in the investment and financing market. It can be said that the pathfinders who have been on the journey of developing domestic operating systems for more than ten years are ushering in the best development environment. The domestic operating system needs to continue to strengthen confidence and insist on innovation, and strive to let Chinese people see the world of the Internet through more “own windows”.

Independent and controllable: the road is a long way to go

The autonomous and controllable road is full of challenges. From Batumi to the Wassenaar Agreement, to the recent U.S. sanctions on Chinese companies such as ZTE and Huawei, the technology blockade against China by Western countries has always existed. Batumi, established in 1950, led by the US government, joined forces with Western European countries to impose an embargo on socialist countries, preventing and restricting the flow of Western strategic products and high-tech products to socialist countries. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the upheaval in Eastern Europe, Batumi also disbanded, but the export control policies of Western countries did not end with it. The Wassenaar Agreement was signed in 1996, and new control lists and information exchange rules were implemented from November 1996, which actually replaced Batumi, and China was also among the embargoed countries. Although the Wassenaar Agreement is not mandatory in Batumi, in fact China is still unable to directly obtain advanced military or civilian technologies or products from the Western world.

It is precisely because of Western countries’ restrictions and embargoes on China that we have to embark on the road of independent research and development, and the results have proved to be very effective. Our Beidou system, radio telescope, Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer, J-20 and other advanced technologies and achievements have all reached the world’s leading level.

Against such a background, China’s localization work should also carry forward the spirit of “two bombs and one satellite”, and walk out of a path of independence and control. Science and technology know no borders, but technology companies have national borders. We can’t pin our hopes on the mercy of others, and our destiny can only be in our own hands! It is only when it is difficult that it is more courageous; it is only when it is committed that it is precious. The independent and controllable process of China’s information industry is not destined to be a smooth journey and requires more efforts from those with aspirations.

The text and pictures in this article are from InfoQ