A Microsoft Open Technologies subsidiary has been set up in Shanghai as the company aims to expand open-source standards in China.
“There is a very interesting open source community in China and we want to work with them,” said Gianugo Rabellino, senior vice president of Microsoft Open Technologies. “By creating a subsidiary of Microsoft Open Technologies, we are sending a very clear message that we care about the development of open source.”
The organization, called Microsoft Open Technologies Shanghai, which launched on Thursday, plans to hire engineers and standards professionals, although it has not been determined how many employees it will hire.
Like its US counterpart, Microsoft Open Technologies Shanghai will create and manage open source software projects, participate in standards organizations, and seek ways to enhance interoperability between Microsoft products and open source software.
Of particular interest to the new company is that there were many attempts to create open source programs from China, Rabellino said.
Rabellino declined to discuss why the new company would have a separate legal entity from Microsoft Open Technologies, as opposed to the company's other business units, which are subsidiaries of Microsoft. Companies often set up subsidiaries in foreign countries either for tax advantages or to protect themselves from local laws.
A subsidiary could also help businesses deal with governments that prefer to work with local suppliers. Last year, China enacted a comprehensive economic policy that, in part, seeks to reduce dependence on foreign suppliers of goods and services.
Rabellino said he knew there was no Chinese law that would prevent Microsoft Open Technologies from doing business in China.
Engineers from Microsoft Open Technologies participate in standards organizations such as the DMTF (Distributed Management Task Force), Ecma International, IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force), OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Systems), W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), and ISO (International Organization for Standardization).
They also contribute to open source projects such as the Apache Web server, the JQuery JavaScript framework, the MongoDB data store, the Node.js server-side JavaScript platform, the Wordpress content management platform, and the Mozilla Web browser.
Microsoft has no plans to create further subsidiaries in other countries, Rabellino said.
We warmly thank SecTeam member @NickT.
