Faced with pressure from Europe and the United States, SP3D and PDMS are increasingly being avoided; it is recommended to make use of 3D factory design software developed in China

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It is recommended to use China’s 3D plant design software; the use of SP3D and PDMS is gradually being phased out. Twenty years of devastation: China’s domestically developed industrial software is facing ruthless “zero-price dumping” by European and American firms. Jiang Xunya is a special expert for the WeChat public account “Observations on the Industrial Software Industry”. He is a professor and doctoral supervisor at Fudan University, as well as the Chairman of Shanghai Dongjun Information Technology Co., Ltd. V. The strategies and implementation behind \"strangling\": After discussing the three levels of harm caused by \"pirated software\" in Europe and the United States, let’s now talk about the nature of the \"competition\" faced by domestic companies in China’s industrial software market – a competition that is essentially a form of \"strangling\". I remember when China joined the WTO, it requested certain policy protections for its domestic financial sector. The reason given was quite simple: fair boxing should involve fighters of different \"weights\"; it’s very likely to result in death if a 150-kilogram adult (European and American financial institutions) fights against a 30-kilogram child (Chinese financial institutions). However, there are no protective policies whatsoever for China’s industrial software industry. Many people assume it’s akin to “adults bullying children,” but that isn’t the case. Since European and American software companies can make use of illegal means—namely “pirated software”—the true description of the “competition” faced by China’s domestic industrial software industry should be: adults (European and American software giants) enter the boxing ring armed with “daggers” and “strangling ropes” to “compete” against children (Chinese software companies). It’s obvious that this isn’t a competition, but a massacre. Therefore, it is not hard to understand that during the more than 20 years of rapid growth in China’s industrial output, Chinese industrial software companies largely failed, resulting in the current severe shortage of domestic industrial software. In this regard, all domestic companies in China that are able to “survive” in the market by genuinely developing industrial software (as opposed to those that pay lip service to it while doing otherwise) are like talented and resilient “kids” who have managed to make it through. Some people might ask: Are there also many pirated software programs within Europe and the United States? The answer is: No, because the law will impose sanctions. Many Chinese people, upon hearing this answer, might immediately imagine a scene of an American citizen using pirated software being pursued by the software company and ending up in court. Haha, this image is completely wrong. In reality, if Ansys were to use its market advantages in the United States to distribute large quantities of so-called \"pirated software,\" other companies would immediately file lawsuits. U.S. courts would impose penalties on Ansys under the country’s Anti-Competitive Practices Act; in mild cases, it could be deemed a monopoly firm and forced to be split up, while in severe cases it could be fined into bankruptcy. In fact, the U.S. “Anti-Unfair Competition Law” is a series of laws that date back to the 19th century; over the course of more than a hundred years, numerous proposals were made to expand this framework, resulting in a legal system comprising around a dozen statutes aimed at addressing various forms of unfair competition. The penalties imposed are extremely severe, which is why Ansys does not dare to take advantage of its strengths in the U.S. to engage in \"price dumping.\" How can strategies that don’t work within developed regions like Europe and the United States possibly gain popularity in China? Obviously, this requires considerable strategy and complex operations. Firstly, such “illegal actions” require tacit approval at the political and legal levels in Europe and the United States. Recently, thanks to the case involving Meng Wanzhou of Huawei, people have become aware of the “long-arm jurisdiction” characteristic of U.S. law. In fact, this applies not only to foreign companies but also to domestic ones (the concept of “long-arm jurisdiction” originated in U.S. domestic law). In other words, even if a U.S. company breaks the law in a foreign country, U.S. law still has jurisdiction over it. However, in actual practice, **it’s possible that not only will there be no punishment, but they might even get personally involved.** The commercial \"hidden battles\" between Europe and the United States are also intensifying. Recently, a book written by a Frenchman titled \"The American Trap\" revealed in detail how the U.S. government, courts, and large corporations collude to \"destroy European competitors.\" For example, in recent years the EU has imposed antitrust fines on Google totaling nearly 10 billion dollars; *** immediately stepped forward to claim that this was an attempt by the U.S. to take advantage of Europe, calling for political intervention. On the other hand, for a long time, it has been common for European and American software giants to engage in “unfair competition” internationally by exploiting legal and regulatory loopholes in third-world countries; such actions are tacitly permitted, and even secretly strongly supported, at both the governmental ** and legal levels in their own countries. Secondly, to strangle Chinese industrial software, more \"open\" and \"covert\" tactics are needed, involving collusion among European and American powers, public opinion, and business giants, as well as a series of classic maneuvers. As mentioned earlier, **judicial authorities turn a blind eye and provide covert support, which eliminates the concerns of European and American industrial software giants. After that, these giants need to find \"hired hands\" to carry out the actual tasks: how to release \"legitimate\" versions on the Internet while simultaneously spreading \"pirated\" (or \"cracked\") versions on a wider scale, all while trying to leave as few traces as possible. But after all, it’s been done for decades; it’s difficult to expect that there won’t be any traces left. People might think that these various software giants are operating in secrecy, but in reality they are all setting sail together, which also helps to reduce the costs associated with going out to sea. Modern industrial software (and other software as well) sells \"use licenses\" (referred to simply as \"licenses\"). Customers can easily obtain the so-called \"installation files\", but they need a \"license\" in order to use it. In practice, the verification of \"licenses\" is carried out through a so-called \"license management software,\" which includes (but is not limited to) \"version permission confirmation/management,\" \"password verification,\" \"software conflict management,\" and so on. Since customers can only use the software after passing license verification, companies that produce \"license management software\" become a key element in the market release process, and are the ideal candidates to act as \"white-glove\" service providers. In fact, the companies that develop \"licensing management software\" to serve international software giants are quite concentrated (such as the well-known American company Macrovision Corporation in the field of industrial software), and they are responsible for securing the intellectual property rights of many major industrial software products. As early as the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s – a time when the Internet had not yet become accessible to the general public – there was a fascinating phenomenon: cracked versions of popular software could often be found on the market, with the crackers identifying themselves as belonging to certain hacker groups (which generally claimed to be from \"Russia (the Soviet Union)\") or some country in Eastern Europe. At that time, since there was no Internet, the distribution of “pirated software” required mailing pirated disks (multiple disks were needed for large-scale software). Moreover, the “software user manuals”—which are essential tools for complex industrial software—were generally still in paper form (given the limitations of computer graphics technology at the time). Therefore, the ability to spread “pirated software” was relatively limited back then. In my opinion, “pirated software” in this era is still merely a vanguard for market penetration; it hasn’t yet reached the level of a nuclear weapon capable of “wiping out the market” as it later did. In the mid-to-late 1990s, the Internet revolution took place. Meanwhile, with the significant advancements in computer graphics technology, “user manuals” (including interfaces for various complex operations and visualizations of physical field effects), and even “instructional videos” could now be downloaded together with the installation packages. At this point, the ability of “pirated software” to spread became truly limitless, turning it into a weapon of mass destruction within the industry. At this time, in order to maximize the effectiveness of \"pirated software,\" the methods of distribution became even more explicit, with several specialized websites emerging, such as the well-known \"0daydown.\" As the name suggests, it means that you can download pirated software from here – 0 days slower than the official version (sometimes even sooner)! The first subcategory on the 0daydown website is CAX/EDA software (which refers to the industrial software that the United States is currently using to put restrictions on us). After downloading a pirated installer nowadays, there’s absolutely no need to do anything; it can be installed and used immediately. (In the past, it was necessary to run a small “crack file” and also modify the “network card MAC address,” etc.) Of course, within pirated software, manufacturers might include special markers, Trojan viruses, backdoors, and other such “little things.” In these activities, ordinary people can’t see the presence of European and American companies or software giants at all; this is why some people still think that \"pirated software\" is something that has been stolen. Many people on the Internet say that sites like 0daydown and Warez are the work of hacker groups; I believe someone is deliberately spreading such claims, and I will analyze this in detail below. Firstly, this claim is a good “amulet,” but it still inevitably seems suspicious. Actually, I know people who, back in the 1980s and 1990s, worked as agents for well-known American industrial software; they too have wondered: \"Are the password systems of these ‘license management companies’ that fragile?\" ”Was a newly released software cracked so quickly? ”And various other questions (while, in contrast, credit cards from the same era were much harder to crack). What’s even more suspicious is this: Given that the protection capabilities of “this license management company (for example, Macrovision Corporation in the US)” are so poor, and software can be cracked so easily, why don’t those software giants switch to another company? Instead, they continue to rely on the same license management company for decades Are these “licensing management companies” really that weak? In fact, if you observe carefully, you can see many other “extremely unreasonable” and surprising realities. Taking a software from Ansys, a company in our industry, as an example, you can easily find \"pirated versions\" of it online for all versions from version 10 (released in 2010) up to version 19 (released in 2019); these pirated versions have functions almost identical to the legitimate ones and are released around the same time as the legitimate versions. However, if you try to find the software’s advanced \"material libraries,\" \"device libraries,\" \"model libraries,\" or \"toolkits\" for specific fields, you won’t be able to find any of them! If these pirated versions were indeed cracked by real “hackers” (which could be considered “theft”), then such thieves would be extremely strange – on the one hand, they seem to possess unlimited capabilities, being able to steal the latest versions within a single day (or even ahead of time); on the other hand, they appear to be utterly incompetent, as they haven’t managed to crack any of those advanced knowledge bases that we urgently need (including material databases, device databases, model databases, etc.), nor any of the toolkits essential for specific industries! However, if we look at it from another perspective, everything seems to make perfect sense. If these so-called “pirated software” programs are essentially tools for monopolizing the market and luring users into traps, and if those advanced knowledge bases/tools are designed precisely to exploit the weaknesses of legitimate users, then all of this becomes easy to understand. At the same time, I truly admire those dedicated \"license management companies\". Employers (European and American software giants) want what needs to be \"distributed\" to be spread out discreetly (while bearing the reputation of poor protection), while what needs to be kept under control can be safeguarded perfectly for decades. No wonder those industry software giants have trusted those license management companies for decades on end – that’s really impressive! Finally, let’s talk about the role of Europe and the US**. After these malicious maneuvers are carried out, it is inevitable that the industrial software ecosystem in the Third World** (including China) will collapse, thereby ensuring the industry monopoly of European and American industrial software giants. So, what will the United States** say publicly? Given the kindness of the Chinese people, we would surely think: They have guilty consciences; they probably don’t want to talk about this matter. Haha, if you put it that way, then you really don’t understand the core of Western diplomacy regarding “national perspectives.” It’s all about “game theory”; its essence is “achieving maximum benefits by any means necessary.” (Chinese people often accuse the United States of being “untrustworthy and disloyal.” In reality, within game theory, there are only interests—there’s no such thing as the “integrity” and “loyalty” as understood by us Chinese.) The United States **claims that \"pirated software\" has caused huge losses to its companies, and it holds China **accountable for its inadequate protection of the \"intellectual property rights\" of industrial software in Europe and the United States. This is also the so-called “leverage” they often bring up in bilateral negotiations on trade (including the so-called \"trade in services\"), business, and finance. It’s truly a case of the thief crying ‘thief!’ – a farce staged by industrial software giants in collusion with others; in fact, after reaping huge economic benefits, they also seek substantial political advantages. Some people in the industry have asked me, \"No way – by distributing pirated software, European and American software giants are surely earning less money as well, right?\" ”What kind people they are; if this logic holds true, there would be no such thing as \"dumping\" in the world. The logic behind using dumping to achieve monopoly is as follows: first, crush the competitors to establish a monopoly in the industry, and then use that monopoly position to earn super profits. Now, the software giants from Europe and the United States may feel that they have a complete monopoly in China, and so they have begun to take action against local companies; last year, two medium-sized Chinese private enterprises were sued by them for using \"pirated software\" – one was fined 8 million yuan and the other 19 million yuan. Not only were huge fines imposed, but the company’s research and development was also permanently and substantially tied to software from Europe and the United States. In fact, in addition to that, I also know that they use many other tactics to threaten large Chinese companies into purchasing their legitimate software. In the long run, these are actually minor benefits. If the European and American industrial software giants further develop into “industrial digital platforms,” they will become “vampires” of the industry—and that would be truly terrifying. I’ll explain this later. China’s countermeasures: For a long time, the relevant departments in China failed to recognize the importance of industrial software; they even confused it with ordinary IT software. Moreover, the conventional way of assessing a company’s significance was based on its revenue. A few years ago, there was even an “Industrial Software Conference” at which the seats were filled by giants from the IT and internet industries, which was quite ironic. What they didn’t realize was that industrial software is actually a type of industrial product that, despite having a relatively small value in terms of output, possesses cutting-edge core technologies and can drive the entire industry forward. Furthermore, due to a long-standing lack of awareness (including misinformation from Western and European software companies), “pirated software” has been rampant in China for years, leading to the decline of domestic industrial software enterprises. Recently, as the United States has stepped up its efforts to curb Chinese manufacturing, the Chinese public has come to realize that this extremely tiny industry—so hard to spot even with a magnifying glass—which plays a decisive role in great-power competition, is actually at the core of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Although we are far behind now, and the industry environment is extremely poor due to the contamination by pirated software, there’s no need to be pessimistic. Firstly, there are still a number of Chinese companies that remain committed to the industrial software sector and truly engage in research and development. Although these companies are few in number and relatively small in size, they are like saplings growing in a desert—each possesses unique expertise. Given that domestic industrial software faces “discrimination,” only those capable of solving problems that “Western commercial software cannot address” can win over customers. Should the environment change, these companies will undoubtedly thrive ； Secondly, **attention is now being paid to this area; the spring for this industry has finally arrived. (In fact, the integration of military and civilian sectors in previous years provided us, these “young seedlings,” with plenty of support.) With investment in capital and talent, and leveraging the intelligence of the Chinese people, their entrepreneurial spirit, as well as their strong foundation in mathematics and science education, as long as there is a “reasonable market environment,” it is certainly possible to develop world-class software products. But how to deal with the various maneuvers and strategic threats from Europe and the United States? Recently, an article in People’s Daily advocating for domestically developed industrial software mentioned that “it is essential to respect intellectual property rights and consciously resist pirated software.” This follows the same logic I mentioned earlier regarding “users lacking moral integrity”; its underlying premise is simply incorrect. We must realize that the essence of this issue is that the disseminators are breaking the law. Therefore, I must emphasize once again that it is necessary to take firm action to address the problem of pirated software rampant in the Chinese market. This is not a matter of saving a few billion yuan (or at most a few hundred billion yuan); it is a matter of great significance for the fate of the country. If China does not make an effort to catch up, I believe that industrial software companies in Europe and the United States will eventually become \"vampires\" of the industrial sector (similar to Qualcomm’s role in the semiconductor industry). They will do the following three things: (i) become digital integration platforms for industry \"know-how\"; all the research and development efforts as well as the accumulated knowledge of various industrial companies (such as databases of models and materials, experience, and engineering management practices) will be stored and locked within these platforms. These companies will then use this knowledge to establish all the industry standards (that is, \"software defines everything\") ； (ii) It is possible to hold industries in other countries at a certain level – for example, by blocking certain software functions in China or restricting the computational accuracy of certain modules to a specific level – which prevents those countries’ industries from developing beyond that certain level ； (iii) Similar to Qualcomm, it imposes an “industry tax” (for using Qualcomm’s patents; instead of paying a fixed fee, a certain percentage of the product’s value must be handed over to Qualcomm). Therefore, if we want to become a manufacturing powerhouse that is not fundamentally dependent on others, we must improve industrial software. It is necessary to put an end to \"pirated software\" – which acts like a \"nuclear weapon\" in the market – because such \"dumping of top-quality products at zero cost, combined with internet distribution,\" will inevitably destroy the local market mechanisms. This is why this article states that \"pirated software is the decisive factor in whether domestic software in China can develop.\" China’s nuclear industry is a sector that relies on various types of software, and the current development status of such software within this industry serves as a prime example of how “the market context determines the level of development”. I once heard an experienced figure in the nuclear industry summarize that for any type of software that has been under an embargo by Europe and the United States, China’s nuclear industry has now developed its own versions of such software (including large-scale software used for simulating nuclear explosions) ； As for those software packages that \"can be purchased\" (which are generally \"theoretically\" under an embargo but can actually be bought through certain special channels, and European and American manufacturers are well aware of this), there may also be some alternative versions developed by them, though the quality of these alternatives is usually inferior (after all, they rely on external components) ； In those areas where it’s possible to download pirated software, locally developed software has essentially disappeared altogether; there is reliance solely on pirated versions and a small amount of legitimate software. Therefore, once again, I urge everyone: the world has long suffered from piracy; it is hoped that, for the sake of the long-term stability of China’s industrial sector, this scourge of pirated software can be eradicated at its source. Although, due to the entrenched nature of the problem, it may be necessary to avoid using overly drastic measures and to act with caution, it is now essential to recognize the true nature of the issue, to take decisive action right away, and to overcome all obstacles in order to continuously suppress the sources from which pirated software is released (specific websites) as well as the channels through which it is spread (there should be many ways to restrict its distribution over the Internet), thereby increasing the cost of distributing pirated software for those major industrial software companies in Europe and the United States. If this practice is maintained for some time, the “vacated” mid- and low-end market segments (such as small and medium-sized private enterprises) will become natural allies of domestically developed Chinese software, serving as a breeding ground for it (it would be even better if **appropriate sales subsidies were provided**). At the same time, Chinese governments and software enterprises must expose the multiple conspiracies of Western governments, enterprises, and judicial authorities regarding the so-called “pirated software” issue. They must strip away their false facades, gain the upper hand in public opinion, and thwart the West’s efforts to stifle China’s industrial software industry. End of text. Postscript: As a Chinese industrial software professional working on the front lines, I’ve always wanted to write down my personal experiences and thoughts. Due to being busy, however, I never had the time to do so in detail. This time, I finally wrote about the issue of “pirated software”. However, due to limited capabilities and possibly insufficient research, if there are any omissions or errors, I hope for your understanding. I also hope to elaborate on the other two issues: “Understanding of industrial software” and “**Some suggestions for policies**”. Source: Industry Software Industry Observation