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| IBM gives Chinese officials |
IBM has reportedly
started holding demonstrations to show off an unspecified product's source code
to people outside the company -- particularly to officials from China's
Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Asian
superpower has been asking tech companies for access to their programs' codes,
which are typically closely guarded secrets, for quite some time. Apparently,
it wants to make sure the US hasn't installed backdoors on American-made
software as a way to spy on its citizens.
But
why has IBM decided to comply with the country's demands while many other tech
corporations (with President Obama's blessing) continue to refuse? Chinese
media has been reporting that it's because Big Blue needs the government's
support to expand in the market, though that's yet to be confirmed. An IBM
spokesman clarified to Forbes that
the company's far from being the first to give in, claiming that Microsoft also
allows Chinese officials to poke into its software. In addition, it was
reported earlier this year that Apple gave China permission to look into what
makes iOS tick.
To be
clear, the company hasn't given officials a copy of their source code or
allowed them to examine it for an extended period of time. Instead, these demos
are held inside a secure room with no internet or any other connection to the
outside -- IBM doesn't want its technology stolen, after all. Further,
officials can only test and examine the source code for limited periods,
suggesting that this is really more of a symbolic gesture. This new demo
program has also been launched in other countries besides China, though the
report didn't mention what those nations are.
[Image
credit: Patrick H~/Flickr]
http://goo.gl/z6uDx1
http://www.engadget.com/2015/10/18/wsj-ibm-china-source-code/
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