June 21 issue – Microsoft’s largest beachhead outside the United States is in the state most hostile to it: the People’s Republic of China. Since arriving in Beijing in 1990, the Gates empire has assembled a network of business operations, from research and development to sales and marketing to customer support, second only to that in its Redmond, Washington, hub. Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer, whose minutes are managed as priceless commodities, regularly descend on the mainland for meetings with customers and government officials, trying to find a way to make it in the elusive China market.
