The middle kingdom has always been partial to emperors--and to the prosperous[Editor 1: emperors except the last one; the prosperous except for most of the past 50 years. i'm not sure this truism really means up, or even holds up. wanna take another stab? "in recent years, china's leaders have been obsessed with the mighty and the prosperous," or something ...][Michael Robinson: if the real world is a concern, I should point out that the Venus project has received a fair amount of sceptical and even negative coverage in the Chinese industry press (some of it is online if anyone reads Chinese and wants a URL). I don't know what Time editorial policy is toward this sort of thing, but the "Chinese dupes" angle might have to go.][Michael Robinson: But if you still need the "or something", though, I can provide that]. But that's not the only reason software's King Midas [Michael Robinson: the Midas metaphor is undercut, inter alia, by the fact that he has to come to China to get any respect for Windows CE], Bill Gates, likes to visit so much. Quite unlike in the United States, where the Microsoft chairman faces an antitrust suit and a legion of committed enemies, people in China tend to take Gates at his word [Michael Robinson: See above. Do not confuse sycophancy with credulity]. On his most recent trip, he stopped in Shenzhen to announce that he had lined up nearly every major Chinese computer manufacturer[Michael Robinson: Actually, he announced the previously unannounced project itself. PR flaks announced the lining up.] behind his company's "Venus project," a combination of software and hardware that lets vcd players and other, similar devices display Chinese-language Internet content on a common TV set. He sounded almost saintly when he decreed [Michael Robinson: A little on the purple-florid side, this prose, and the metaphor is mixed as well] that the set-top boxes would "bring entertainment, education and communication technology into the homes of many families that couldn't otherwise afford it."

On the face of it, the plan makes perfect sense. China has 1.3 billion people, 320 million TV sets and only 2.1 million Internet users. Even the cheapest PCs can cost an average Chinese city-dweller several months' wages. Venus boxes will supposedly allow the majority of TV owners[Editor 2: Chinese who already own TVs] to leapfrog that stage and enter[Editor 2: merge onto ]the information superhighway almost immediately. (The devices, designed and produced by researchers at Microsoft's Beijing lab, are expected to be ready by the end of the year.)This, say Venus boosters, is a modern device with Chinese characteristics. Curiously, though, Venus does not even have a proper Chinese name--only a nearly meaningless phonetic transliteration from English. What it does have is Microsoft's Windows CE, and that fact alone should be leading Chinese to question Gates' pious enthusiasm [Michael Robinson: see above, re credulity and purple-florid].

The idea of low-cost family computing is not new in China. For many years, most major department stores have sold simple educational computers for as little as $50. These machines use technology similar to video-game consoles of five years ago, but have full-sized keyboards, display Chinese characters on a TV screen and can run a wide variety of educational and entertainment software. Most of the Chinese companies that Microsoft has enlisted in the Venus project have the technology and resources to introduce such a product on their own. That they haven't should in itself cast suspicion on Gates' reasoning[Michael Robinson: I'd like an opportunity to recast this sentence in a somewhat less supercilious tone.].

The fact is that the common wisdom--that 1.2 billion Chinese actually want [Michael Robinson: "are eager"] to get on the information superhighway--does not hold water. Since 1995, more than 10 million PCs have been sold in China, but only one-fifth that many[Editor 1: or some other restatement to avoid repeating the 2.1 m from above] Chinese have Internet access. [Michael Robinson: "but the number of Chinese Internet users is less than a fifth of that amount."] In affluent Guangzhou, Internet penetration is far lower than in Beijing. At the same time, the low-cost, easy-to-use, "national intranet"[Editor 2: --EXPLAIN BRIEFLY HERE--][Michael Robinson: "(a local-content Internet alternative for the masses)"] has failed to attract customer interest, and will probably be abandoned this year.

All this suggests that cost is not the primary hurdle to getting wired in China. One of the obstacles is social. The reason Beijing has the country's highest Internet penetration is because it is China's educational, cultural and high-tech center. Beijing simply has more people who can appreciate the "web life-style," as Gates calls it. Another challenge is the low quality of content available for the mainland market. Currently, Internet access is most attractive to young, educated, English-speaking Chinese who can use the Net as a window to the world and a means to communicate with friends and ex-classmates living abroad. The Internet in China doesn't offer much today for the conservative life-style of the common folk.

For Gates, though, Venus has an extra [Michael Robinson: where are the other advantages that it is extra to?] advantage: it could help overcome problems faced by Windows CE in the U.S. Microsoft's Windows 95 software has dominated the American desktop market because of its compatibility: users buy the system that has the most third-party software available, and third-party developers produce software for the system that has the most users. Windows CE, on the other hand, is targeted at the hand-held and embedded-systems market. Users of hand-held computers could care less [Michael Robinson: And they often do! Seriously, this whole sentence needs to be fixed.] how many programs can interact with their operating system; what they want is a simple, reliable, easy-to-use system. By those criteria Windows CE has failed in the U.S., capturing only 25% of the hand-held market, trailing the 41% share of 3M's[Editor 2: yes?][Michael Robinson: No. "3M" is the Post-It(tm) company; "3Com" is the Palm Connected Computing(tm) company] PalmOS.

Embedded systems, such as the proposed Venus box, are self-contained, which again means consumers do not require third-party software. In the West this has allowed for greater variety and stiffer competition, as companies far smaller than Microsoft develop more efficient programs [Michael Robinson: "software"]. The embedded-systems industry site, www.embedded.com, lists more than 30 different, commercially available embedded real-time operating systems. Windows CE isn't even mentioned.

So Windows CE needs help. [Michael Robinson: "Manufacturers prefer to use mature, proven systems for big projects, but a system needs to be used on big projects before it can mature and prove itself. Thus,"] Even if Venus never makes a big impact on China's Internet market, the very act of embedding Windows CE into millions of Chinese consumer products will create momentum that can only help the marketing of Windows CE elsewhere. WE NEED ANOTHER SENTENCE OR TWO EXPLAINING HOW AND WHY HERE. [Michael Robinson: "Bill Gates can use his leverage in China to deliver a "big project" as a fait accompli."] Chinese would do well to listen more carefully to Gates' words [Michael Robinson: See above, re credulity]: when he comes to China, he may not be asking what he can do for the country, but what the country can do for him.