What would a similar list look like in the USA? What categories and brands be different?

Software and IT: Microsoft? That's good and bad; industry standard and that there is not much of an alternative for their 1990's technology. What it really means is that your PC in China is probably hacked. Typically a foreign company gives their China employee a PC with their own nifty spyware, but don't worry, it will be replaced (or accompanied) here by the local IT guys with their own spyware.

Those few lawyers, doctors, researchers and US Government people I've seen with their MacBooks must be happy. One of them said after his trusty IBM laptop blew the harddisc that it also got stolen the next day. If that data had ended up in wrong hands he would've been better dead. His company gave him a new MacBook Pro and told him to click on the built in encryption.

I resemble that remark; I had the only 2 hard disk crashes in my entire computing lifespan in Beijing. From the moment I first logged on in China, my firewall would pop up so often it looked like blinking night sign. Since I've taken that same laptop back to the West, no virus my AVS hasn't caught. So my sense is that there is more infection online than onboard.

But on to the brands. The only one that surprised me is BMW. What I'd really wonder about is the broadband provider they chose.

Right on. M$ are what most IT professionals developers uses on the job. It's the same ol' boring corporate box me in style of doing things. For me the more interesting researches done out here are definitely not done on M$ boxes.

Besides, I prefer the whole Linux/Unix philosophy over M$'s mono culture, "the one true way."

Also, knowing a thing or two about how certain things are implemented in the O.S, IMHO I believe that Linux's implementation is better.

But I suppose it's all a matter of taste. Sure, I use Windows XP occasionally for an hour of gaming, but I rather not have to live and work in that POS environment. It's just so ...yuck.

Microsoft for software, and Lenovo for PC? Are they out of their f___ing minds?

What about fast food?...KFC anybody? As for personal banking, I still think in China you're best off stashing your money under your mattress...either that or a foreign account.

I dunno man Chinese KFC are exponentially better than the ones in the States. I actually will eat at a KFC in China...