Microsoft managed to irritate Chinese computer users with its new antipiracy move. The antipiracy application is called Genuine Advantage.

This application creates an inconvenience for users by causing the desktop background to turn black every hour.

It’s interesting to note that Microsoft managed to be successful in China by actually encouraging piracy of its products. Bill Gates himself said recently that Microsoft competes better against Linux in China because of permissiveness to piracy. This way, the market share is increased, until one day the company forces people to buy its products.

The irony here is that the Chinese people are facing daily government monitoring and censorship of their online activity, but a less invasive tactic by a company is openly disliked.

Overall, it’s clear that Microsoft is trying to have it both ways, expand its market while ignoring piracy and also cracking down on piracy. The best solution for Mircorosft is probably to charge reasonable prices for its products and work on other business models that can make it additional revenues.