CHINA

Microsoft to Facilitate Access to Legal Software: The Redmond, Wash., software firm’s action was taken to combat piracy in China, Microsoft Corp.’s China general manager said. Personal computers usually come loaded with operating systems, making them less likely to be illegally copied, but that is not the case in China. “Our estimation is that around 50% of the PCs available in China, shipped into or manufactured in China don’t have DOS or Windows,” Duh Jia-Bin said. The Delivery Service Partners Program will offer manufacturers prepackaged Microsoft operating systems--Chinese versions of MS-DOS 6.22, Windows 3.2 and Windows 95--to bundle with their PCs.