On May 20, the Chinese Government Procurement Net issued a notice promulgating that:  'The Windows 8 operating system may not be installed on any computer purchased by any level of Chinese government". Following this,the authorities clarified that the: “autonomously developed desktop operating systems are all based on the Linux kernel.  Red Flag Linux latest version is 6.0 and the Linux variant made in China 'Ubuntu Kylin' has come out with a new version'.

The Chinese Government's choices for desktop operating systems are:

·        Windows 7. Specialized version of the Win7 OEM edition can still be sold after October 2014. This operating system architecture inherited the look of Windows XP but like Vista and Windows 8 has an NT internal architecture.   Still unknown whether it may be banned in the future for security reasons.  Win7 is not cheaper than the non-touch screen editions of Win8.

·         Linux.  There are many Chinese editions. Linux/Ubuntu is open source so many Linux systems can be downloaded for free. This brings down the cost of a PC considerably but the hidden costs of user training and technician training make this not a strong choice.

·         Mac OS X.  Apple’s OS X system is now free but since it is dedicated to Apple computers which are more expensive than PCs, this choice would not bring down government procurement costs.