Western companies must follow government regulations to operate in China

All Western companies that want to operate in China must follow the rules of the communist government.

There are apps that are available in the US App Store, but are not available in the China App Store, due to certain content limitations.

According to China’s online policies, you cannot use a Chinese leader as an entertainment figure,

and you also cannot distribute any content that is anti-communist.

Until recently, games were banned in the China App Store.

Apple’s statement:

“We continue to comply with local law. Not all apps are available in every country.”

Often, app developers opt out of listing on the Chinese online store because they don’t want to create their program in Chinese.

Reference: “Taking a Bite Out of Apple” article in San Jose Mercury News, by John Boudreau

Educational Apps for Children in China

Bokan Technologies: makes children’s educational apps for the iphone, Bo Wang is the CEO

App aimed for children's market in China

Cute Math app: a top – ranked educational program for children

Apple's long history of high-end strategy focues

The thing is that Apple has never been a low-end market player in any geography, and some say it would not make sense for them to go in the low-end direction

Apple’s "shoot for the high-end" philosophy has made it the world’s most valuable tech company in terms of market capitalization.

Apple’s strategy in the past has been to maximize profit margin instead of market share.

Apple has never been for the mass market; it has been and will always be for the tech geeks and elites (in China) who don’t care about the lack of China-specific content

Most of Apple’s customers are highly-educated elites, often with experience of living outside China, or even wealthy Chinese who give the devices as gifts without any understanding of how the devices work .

Reference: “Apple revamps its China app store” article from San jose mercury news, by John Boudreau

Is the low-end space the only space in China?

Some argue that in China, you have to make money from low-end users

Apple can dominate the high end Chinese user space of about tens of millions

But if Android can dominate the low end space with hundreds of millions of users, it can be argued that developers will still go there

Innovation Works

Innovation Works

An early-stage venture capital

Founded by Kai-Fu Lee

Apple in China

Without a stronger offering of local apps, apple could miss out on the increasing number of wealthy Chinese who don’t speak English.

Apple needs to create closer relationships with Chinese developers, or they will risk falling behind in the market.

TencentQQ

TencentQQ is a popular portal and messaging service in China

apple4.us

Popular Tech Blog in China:

Apple4.us

Local App Developers in China

A number of low-end local app stores have emerged in China.

Sky-Mobi is backed by Sequoia China

Roads to Success of Some Successful Tech Figures

Alumni event, University of Illinois annual Silicon Valley dinner.

Someone who had a big hand in developing FarmVille.

Alumnus Tom Siebel - co-founded Siebel Systems in 1993.

Jerry Sanders, worked at Fairchild and then co-founded AMD.

Larry Ellison, left Illinois after two years, and became one of the world's richest men.

Maybe two years is the way to go? Seibel put in 4 years, and then even went on to get an MBA and a Master's at Urbana-Champaign.....but Larry Ellison got the company .

Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape, is now a big time venture guy and king maker who serves on the boards of HP, Facebook, and eBay.

Prith Banerjee, directs HP Labs.

Martin Eberhard, co-founded Tesla.

Jeremy Karim and Jawed Karim are founders of Yelp.

Max Levchin co-founded PayPal.

Alan Braverman co-founded Geni.

Steve Chen and Jawed Karim co-founded Youtube.

Mike Cassidy of San Jose Mercury News

Reference: "Top Techies Show Value of a College Education" article in San Jose Mercury News, by Mike Cassidy