He says that as far as system software is concerned, American companies have a monopoly. Concerning databases, Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, Informix and Sybase dominate China s market. Other major business software is dominated by Microsoft Office and IBM's Notes. Chinese enterprises will remain weak in these areas for the foreseeable future, so it makes no difference to the Chinese software industry whether the tariff level is low or high. Areas in the software industry in which Chinese enterprises do well are system integration, software catering to various trades and software that depends on a Chinese environment.
Different trades have different, highly specialized software needs.
Even business software depends on local companies for value-added development. As for Chinese characters, Ni says that they have served as shields in China s battle against foreign companies. Although Chinese character capability plays a smaller role than before, it still gives China an advantage in such areas as education software. Thus, in the above respects, China s software industry has an inherent advantage and will be least affected by tariffs. In the long run, says Ni, China s entry into the WTO will improve the intellectual property situation, thus benefiting the development of the Chinese software industry.