Zhang Long made his fortune selling pu'er fermented tea and handcrafted furniture from the mountains of his native Yunnan province in southwest China.
Last November, the 49-year old entrepreneur, who has no technology background, strode into a Beijing ballroom to pitch his latest made-in-China product: SPGnux, a Linux-based operating system that he says could replace Microsoft Corp's Windows.
"Information security is vital to the interests of China and the interests of the Chinese people," Zhang proclaimed as a marketing video flashed images of former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden on large monitors.