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More than 40 percent Dell PCs come pre-loaded with Chinese OS

Chinese operating system software Neokylin is slowly but gradually replacing Microsoft in China

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Sonal Desai
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MUMBAI, INDIA: Contrary to popular perceptions that Microsoft holds a dominating position in the operating system software market, a Chinese operating system called NeoKylin OS is gradually spreading wings in the market.

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Chenhong Huang, President, Dell China told Wall Street Journal that more than 40 percent of Dell PCs in China come pre-loaded with NeoKylin OS.

The operating system looks and functions much like Windows, with a task bar along the bottom on the screen and windows for applications and folders. Its symbol is a stylized version of the Qilin, the mythical hoofed beast after which it is named.

NeoKylin is a FreeBSD-based desktop OS, developed by CS2C and the National University of Defense Technology, and is used for national defense and all sectors of the country’s economy.

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In her blog post, Eva Dou, a writer with Wall Street Journal, wrote that NeoKylin has been a decade and a half in the making. In 2001, Beijing assigned the National University of Defense Technology — which is administered by the country’s defense ministry — the mission of developing a home grown operating system. The project came under the national government’s 863 Program dedicated to building critical technologies domestically to reduce reliance on foreign countries. Other 863 projects include China’s Tianhe supercomputers and the Shenzhou spacecraft.

It must be noted that Dell announced a cooperative agreement with China Standard Software (CS2C), planning to preinstall NeoKylin operating system in its commercial PCs like Latitude commercial notebooks, OptiPlex commercial desktops, Precision workstations, and Vostro series of products, in August 2014.

China Standard Software Chief Executive Han Naiping said NeoKylin is currently used by government agencies and companies in the financial sector, among other clients. Dell was the first Western brand to make NeoKylin PCs after the two companies struck a partnership last year, and Hewlett-Packard has since begun to make them as well.

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