Free Resolve and Fortitude : Microsoft's ''SECRET POWER BROKER'' breaks his silence by Joachim Kempin Page A

mess! Our goal, therefore, was to explore if the government would support an effort to reduce piracy and use her clout to instill honesty into local manufacturers.
    Arriving in Beijing, we met at once with Mr. Zee, CEO of the Great Wall Technology Company Ltd., who hosted our visit. After he detailed what to expect from our next-day government visit, we left for the old and disheveled US embassy building. We met the ambassador in the same office, occupied fifteen years earlier by then president Bush (41) as ambassador to China. Here we received a thorough briefing on the legal and political situation, which prepared us for our lobbying effort.
    My local team insisted on renting two stretched limos to add status to our visit. I reluctantly agreed. Such pompous manner was normally not MS’s style. I was accompanied by a government-cleared translator, one of our attorneys, the sales team, and Ben Hsu, our support engineer. Ben spoke both Chinese dialects fluently, and his role was to function as my trusted second ear. When we arrived at the Ministry of Technology, people were leaning out their office windows to catch a glimpse of the limos, which were two out of three in all of Beijing. Would causing such a commotion work for us?
    After a formal greeting ceremony, we were seated in a large conference room with our backs to the inside wall. My translator told me this was a centuries-old custom, allowing a visitor not to fear an attack from behind. At least our host was considerate and looking out for us. A large delegation from the ministry joined us, though the founder of Great Wall and the highest government official present were the only members who actually spoke. The rest of the group functioned as note-taking scribes.
    After politely talking around the issues for a while, per custom, the highest government official, a vice minister, told us flat out that he would not allow us to license any OEM directly but would be willing to sponsor a group license. He hinted that if we could strike such an agreement, the government would guarantee us a minimum annual amount paid in US dollars through the Bank of China. He further promised Great Wall would submit quarterly MS-DOS reports on behalf of all PRC PC manufacturers.
    During recess I thought the initial proposal was a good starting point. My reservation: I had just refused giving VTech a comparable role. I questioned if Great Wall would be able to obtain accurate numbers from her competitors. Could the vice minister, even if the PRC government had a stake in all local PC manufacturers, really enforce his will on them? Being the eternal hopeful, I was not convinced his first proposal would be his last word on the matter. Back in the conference room, I politely detailed our hesitations and determinedly aired our laundry list of concerns. I found out the hard way: it was the communist’s way or the highway. Welcome to a totalitarian regime. With no other option and wanting to at least get the big toe in the door, I eventually caved in.
    In November of ’89, Beijing was still recovering from the bloody upheaval of the Tiananmen Square protests. There were more important issues to address than dealing with software piracy. Soon thereafter, the verbal offer was taken back and later repeated in modified form; the details were rehashed again and again. We never gave up; they kept coming back. The wheels of the Chinese government turned slowly, inching forward, testing to see if a newly proposed deal was a politically correct one. Eventually, consensus began building between the policy makers, and two years later, a final deal was struck. Richard Fade, who by then was managing my Asian OEM business, deserves kudos for overcoming the obstacles Chinese bureaucrats threw into his path—tenaciously holding on and never letting go. To perform my signature duty, I happily returned to Beijing in ’91; Mr. Zee from Great Wall signed on behalf of the government. I still have a copy of the