China reportedly plans to release a desktop OS rival to Windows in October

By Konrad Krawczyk Published August 25, 2014

china to release a desktop os rival windows in october xp — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Microsoft and China have not been the best of friends in recent times. Such low-lights from the relationship between the two include the incident when a Chinese government agency banned people from installing Windows 8 on its machines. Then there was the incident when Chinese government officials paid unannounced visits to Microsoft offices, reportedly investigating the tech giant for monopolistic practices.

Related: Five ways Microsoft could make Windows 9 great

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Now, it looks like China wants to level a much bigger blow against Redmond, with a report indicating that a home-grown operating system for desktop PCs is being developed right now, and will be released sometime this October.

Not much is known about this operating system. However, Ni Guangnan of the Chinese Academy of Engineeering, when speaking with the Xinhau news agency, revealed the October launch time-frame, along with the inclusion of an app store.

Related: Windows 9 leaks, news, rumors, and more

Though there hasn’t been a big public reveal yet, Guangnan is confident that this OS could boot out American rivals like Windows and Mac OS X, stating that foreign operating systems could be eradicated from the nation’s computers in two years or less.

This wouldn’t be the first time that China tried to make an in-house OS. In 2000, China created Red Flag Linux, which was required to be installed on all state computers. However, it never gained traction with the general Chinese public.

Considering that Windows 9 could be publicly revealed sometime in late September or early October, it will be interesting to see what this new Chinese operating system will look like since it could get unveiled around that same time.

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Konrad Krawczyk

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Konrad covers desktops, laptops, tablets, sports tech and subjects in between for Digital Trends. Prior to joining DT, he…

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