Yesterday, the folks at BGPMon, who monitor such things, discovered that IDC-China Telecom had leaked spurious route announcements for such popular sites as dell.com, cnn.com, www.amazon.de, www.rapidshare.com causing them to be unreachable for some users.

FORBES: Is China Testing Cybernukes?

The IDC reckons that China's online population will be 33 million by the end of 2004, some 35% of the region's wired population.

CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia | Asia Buzz: Let's Lose the Prefix

That was up a respectable 16% from 2006, but it is less than half the sales that IDC figures Microsoft gets from China.

FORBES: Knitters Without Windows

IDC, a research firm, says China will become the world's biggest market for smartphones this year.

ECONOMIST: HTC

Public procurement will account for 14% of the 40 million PCs sold annually in China this year, estimates market research firm IDC.

WSJ: China's Curbs on Tech Purchases Draw Ire

According to IDC, more than 210 million smartphones were sold in China last year giving the country a share of almost 30% of the world market and leaving the U.S. far behind.

FORBES: Qualcomm Can Dial Up $70 Despite Slower Growth

Tech tracker IDC estimates 2.5 million tablet computers will be sold in China this year.

FORBES: Your iPads Won't Be Smuggled To China Now

That's a lot of users but IDC's regional analyst Peter Hitchen rightly points out that places like China and India remain relatively poor alongside longer-standing but smaller Net populations in Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and Australia.

CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia | Asia Buzz: Let's Lose the Prefix

One of the reasons for its success in China could be down to its ability to be controlled says vice president of software systems at IDC, Dan Kusnetzky.

BBC: Linux takes on MS in China