China has just caused a bit of a crap storm with the rather stunning decision to ban Windows 8 from all government computers, according to reports in the country. The news comes from Reuters and China’s Xinhua news agency, and cites a statement on the Chinese Central Government Procurement Center’s website that says new PCs are “forbidden to have Windows 8 installed”.

It’s not clear why China has made such a drastic move, as the statement failed to give an explanation. However, Xinhua claimed that the decision was made in “retaliation” for Microsoft’s decision to end support for Windows XP, which is still the most widely-used OS on China’s public sector PCs. Apparently, China’s government wants to avoid “a similar situation again in future if it continues to purchase computers with [a] foreign OS”.

More conspiracy-minded theorists might assume the decision has something to do with the US government’s recent announcement that its charging several Chinese army offices with cyberespionage. The charges relate to China’s PLA Unit 61398, which was accused by the security firm Mandiant of hacking into numerous US government organizations and companies on behalf of China’s government over the last few years – something that China steadfastly denies. However Xinhua notes that the decision to dump Windows 8 was made last week, before those charges were announced, which implies that couldn’t possibly be the reason for the move (Unless China’s hackers had advance warning, of course…).

China may also be annoyed by the fact that Microsoft is still providing custom extended support to certain wealthy enterprise customers, notably the UK and Netherlands governments, which are paying millions of dollars for the privilege.

Microsoft later put out a statement in response to the news, saying it was “surprised” by China’s decision:

“This morning, the China Central Government Procurement Center posted a notification titled ‘Bidding Process for Government Purchasing Energy-efficient IT Products.’ The notification indicates that the Windows 8 operating system is excluded in the bidding,” said Microsoft in its statement.

“We were surprised to learn about the reference to Windows 8 in this notice. Microsoft has been working proactively with the Central Government Procurement Center and other government agencies through the evaluation process to ensure that our products and services meet all government procurement requirements. We have been and will continue to provide Windows 7 to government customers. At the same time, we are working on the Window 8 evaluation with relevant government agencies.”

The move supports the theory that China is determined to go it alone and develop its own operating systems to get away from its reliance foreign software companies. Last January, China launched its own Linux-based mobile OS for smartphones, the somewhat unimaginatively named “China Operating System”. Meanwhile, other locally made operating systems like StartOS and the Ubuntu-based Kylin are aiming for a piece of the PC market, though these have yet to gain any real traction.

As such, the government’s decision to nix Windows 8 and opt for something different could well give these alternatives the kick up the ass they need – so long as it doesn’t just go with Windows 7, of course.

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