Talk:Foxit Software

Requested Edits[edit]

This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest has now been answered.

My name is Alisa and I work at FoxIt Software. I would like to request an impartial, uninvolved editor consider deleting the following content below from the History section. All of this content is cited to the China Securities Regulatory Commission or short blurbs, rather than proper secondary sources. It appears to have been written by someone with a disproportionate interest in FoxIt's operations in China.

Requested Deletions

"a Chinese national with permanent residence in the United States" (cited to the China Securities Regulatory Commission)

"In December 2015, Foxit went public on the Chinese over-the-counter market NEEQ." (cited to a short blurb)

"Before 2019, Amazon was an early investor and substantial shareholder of Foxit, once owning 12.38％ of the latter's shares, before divesting in 2019 to make Foxit eligible for a simplified IPO process for domestic companies in China." (cited to the China Securities Regulatory Commission)

"In June 2020, the parent company of the group, Fujian Foxit Software Development Joint Stock Co., Ltd., received permission to list in the Shanghai Stock Exchange STAR Market (the Sci-Tech Innovation Board). According to Foxit's pre-IPO disclosures, it seeks to raise RMB 409 million (approximately USD 49 million)." (cited to a short blurb)

"As a technology company, Foxit is eligible to receive a reduced tax rate of 15% in China. It also received RMB 13 million of Chinese government subsidies in 2019. As of 2019, most of Foxit's software development has been taking place within China, while over 90% of its revenue was earned outside of China, in markets such as the United States, Europe, Japan and Australia." (cited to the China Securities Regulatory Commission)

Additionally, I would like to ask that the very first paragraph of the introductory section be re-written (I can put together a proposed draft upon request) as FoxIt is an American company with global headquarters in Fremont, California. Fujian, China is where the company's regional headquarters are. Alisafetic (talk) 20:14, 11 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Alisafetic for respecting Wikipedia's conflict-of-interest policy and requesting these edits here. I do agree that sourcing material to blurbs may raise questions; on the other hand, the source here – the China Securities Regulatory Commission – will be considered a reliable source in my view. Where I see problems, though, is that your proposed edits seem to focus on expunging information about Foxit's Chinese origin and links. Am I correct? Regards, — kashmīrī ^TALK 21:41, 11 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

WP:RSPRIMARY says "Large blocks of material based purely on primary sources should be avoided." Here, half the history section is based on primary sources. Those primary sources have been misinterpreted, resulting in factual errors (e.g. FoxIt is based in Fremont, California, not China). The primary sources also create neutrality issues by focusing the page on China, though Foxit has similar government filings in dozens of other countries. Yes, I am trying to remove the content about China, because it is misleading, improperly sourced, creates undue emphasis, etc. in violation of Wikipedia's rules. Alisafetic (talk) 19:06, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Alisafetic - responding to your request - I agree with Kashmiri that that source is ok. The relevant policy is WP:ABOUTSELF - the company's filing to a regulatory agency is a reliable source of information about the company itself. If there are reliable sources that call it an American company, then please present them. SmartSE (talk) 09:25, 2 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Kashmiri: and @Smartse: I thought Wikipedia prohibited conducting its own research into legal documents like regulatory filings. Now that I've been corrected, I would like to request the four corrections/changes below:

Requested Corrections

(1) Text from Page:"Foxit Software, Chinese: 福昕软件, is a Chinese[1][2][3] software company"
Correction: Foxit is based in Fremont, California, not China. You can verify this on our website, in the news, and/or in U.S. government documents.[1][2]. The China Securities document cited to say we are headquartered in China is from a related legal entity called Fujian Foxit Software Development Co. Ltd. that is based in China. Like most companies, Foxit's legal structure is complex, but our principal offices, executives, etc. are in California.

(2) Text from Page:"In June 2020, the parent company of the group, Fujian Foxit Software Development Joint Stock Co., Ltd., received permission to list in the Shanghai Stock Exchange STAR Market (the Sci-Tech Innovation Board). According to Foxit's pre-IPO disclosures, it seeks to raise RMB 409 million (approximately USD 49 million)."
This is cited to a short blurb based on a press release that does not qualify for "ABOUTSELF" and is used to add excessive emphasis on our operations in China. This public filing in China raised less than one year's worth of revenue from our global operations and is not an important part of FoxIt's history.

(3) Text from Page:"As a technology company, Foxit is eligible to receive a reduced tax rate of 15% in China. It also received RMB 13 million of Chinese government subsidies in 2019. As of 2019, most of Foxit's software development has been taking place within China, while over 90% of its revenue was earned outside of China, in markets such as the United States, Europe, Japan and Australia."
Like the other items, this places an undue emphasis on China, but it is accurate. I suggest moving it to an Operations section.

(4) Key People Section
Are these types of sections welcome on Wikipedia? A lot of the information is out-dated and it seems more like the kind of information users would expect on the company website, as opposed to an independent encyclopedia. I suggest removing the entire section, or in the alternate I can provide some corrections.

Question: I presume if our filings with the China Securities Regulatory Commission can be used, we can also use similar filings with other governments? If so, I can put together some content to help expand the page to have more of an international focus using filings in other countries, instead of relying exclusively on Foxit's filings in China. Alisafetic (talk) 17:07, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia rules allow legal documents to be used for a citation. Boredathome101 (talk) 09:23, 16 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've updated the HQ as requested, and also removed the personnel section as it was mostly trivial and unsourced. With respect to the weight given to China in the history section, I disagree that this is really undue; it's sourced, and directly pertinent to the company's ongoing budget. Better than removing sourced material from a rather short section would be expanding it to include aspects of the company's operations in other regions. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:37, 28 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I am closing this request as it has been partially fulfilled and I cannot determine what is left to be done. If there is still information to be added, please open a new request below. Z1720 (talk) 19:30, 14 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Notification of major edits[edit]

I made some edits to clarify that this article is for Foxit Software Inc., the US-based subsidiary of Fujian Foxit Software Development. However, I have an inclination to change the subject of this article to Fujian Foxit Software Development given that nearly every piece of information in the article, from the founding date (2001), to the incorporation date (2009), to the SSE listing, through the acquisition of subsidiaries are about the Chinese parent company. There is an argument that the products section is talking about the U.S. subsidiary's products, but as a wholly-owned consolidated subsidiary of Fujian Foxit, Foxit US' products are Fujian Foxit's products.

Just making a notification here first before I change the infobox and header to be for the Chinese company, given that the article's content is about the Chinese company's history and activities. --haha169 (talk) 03:56, 28 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

With public data like https://www.linkedin.com/company/foxit-corporation/people/ you can easily see that most Foxit people located outside of China are just for sales, marketing and support. Maybe because it would be very hard to sell the products from China directly to US or European customers. If you filter by US locations + Engineers only 22 people are left and containing sales support positions like solutions engineering and also some testers. So "US product" means only "for the US" not "build in the US" if you assume (US) developers are typically having linkedin.

Also by raw employee numbers and location its hard to say the HQ could be in the US. Utumio (talk) 19:47, 24 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I just reverted a series of edits by User:Brien Maloney that reestablished Fremont as Foxit's HQ, despite all evidence pointing to the Chinese headquarters, as explained above.

Maloney's edits may also be a WP:COI problem because Foxit's Senior Search Engine Optimization manager is also named Brien Maloney, which is not exactly a super common name.

As explained above, Foxit's HQ is in China so I have reverted the change. Edits that came after Maloney's edits had also been reverted, but I checked and those edits were building on Maloney's and didn't add anything new. Please let me know if I am wrong in this. --haha169 (talk) 23:28, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Foxit is located in China[edit]

All conversations in this talk page is about whether or not Foxit is located in Fremont, California, or Fuzhou, China. Foxit is in fact a China-headquartered company, and I have added reliable sourcing to that effect. These sourced changes have been reverted, despite my explanations in this talk page, and without any response by those doing the reverting. I figure it would be helpful for me to explain, line-by-line, my edits, and the sourcing behind those edits.

I primarily used Foxit's own annual report for the changes. Those who revert my edits use Foxit's website to claim that Foxit is headquartered in Fremont. Foxit's website is an unreliable source, because it is primarily a marketing platform by Foxit to market their products. Foxit has many clients in the U.S., and has a motive to market itself as an American company. On the other hand, Foxit's annual report is a legal document submitted to China's securities regulator, and everything presented in the annual report legally must be accurate.

Here are the reasons why Foxit is a Chinese company:

This article is about the company that makes the Foxit line of PDF-related editing software. That company's full legal name is Fujian Foxit Software Development Joint Stock Co., Ltd. (福建福昕软件开发股份有限公司), also known as "company (公司)" throughout the annual report as a shorthand, (p. 5) and its registered address (公司注册地址) and offices (公司办公地址) are both located in Fuzhou, China. (p. 7)

Fujian Foxit is the primary developer behind the Foxit line of PDF software:

PDF 编辑器与阅读器产品是公司的核心产品，包括 PDF Editor、PDF Editor For Cloud、PDF Editor Mobile 和 PDF Reader。(p. 15)

PDF editing and reading products are the company's core products, including PDF Editor, PDF Editor For Cloud, PDF Editor Mobile, and PDF Reader. (my translation -- remember that 'company' means Fujian Foxit)

The Fremont, California-based Foxit entity is known as "Foxit Software Inc." This company is 100% wholly-owned by Fujian Foxit (p.255, Table - 在子公司中的权益, row 2). Fujian Foxit is the primary parent company of all of Foxit's global operations, wholly owning Foxit companies in Germany, Japan, and the Fremont, California branch. Wikipedia's article on Microsoft is about the HQ in Washington state, and for obvious reasons, not Microsoft's subsidiary in China. The same idea applies here.

Foxit Software Inc's reported business area is "software sales" (软件销售). (p.255) This information matches with @Utumio:'s research above that shows Foxit's non-Chinese employees being primarily in a sales and support capacity. Foxit Software Inc is Fujian Foxit's subsidiary in the United States that helps facilitate the sale of Foxit products in the United States. This article is about the company that makes the Foxit line of PDF products, hence, it should be about the company that actually develops the software (Fujian Foxit) and not Fujian Foxit's sales branch in the United States. --haha169 (talk) 20:02, 8 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]