>>MS's strategy of making it's software and tools subscription based and accessed through web services won't work in Asia.
>
>Maybe, maybe not. It all depends on how far back you step to look at the big picture:
>http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/rja14/tcpa-faq.html

That won't work. They will simply not buy new hardware or software that supports this anti-piracy strategy. The price of Windows XP is the equivalent of the average Thai programmer's salary for a month. In China, 6 months. If they go this route it will force 2/3 of the world's population to Linux on independently manufactured RISC processors. The open source pundants will have effectively won, game over. The only reason the chinese use windows is because it is so easily hacked and there is a pile of black market hardware available to last for years.