Microsoft aiming at expanding in China

Microsoft aiming at expanding in China

Microsoft is the world’s largest software company and is actively working on increasing its presence in the web services market. Google and Yahoo! are the dominating players in this segment.

China on the other hand is one of the fastest growing internet markets with the world’s second largest base of internet users. It provides a lucrative market for these tech companies to be in.

Both Google and Yahoo! are working hard on improving their services in this market by launching localized version of their regular features. However, the local market itself is very competitive with domestic players leading in most of the online services segments like search.

This has resulted in a situation that US based tech giants prefer to form collaborations with Chinese companies to get an easy entry into this market.

Microsoft has now said in a statement that they are actively seeking Chinese partners to better access the nation’s huge market and its engineering talent

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told a briefing in Beijing: “We need to broaden out our ability to partner with all the latest technology, with the broadest set of customers here in China, in rural areas and in urban areas. We will only succeed in that if we have great partnerships with Chinese technology companies.”

The company has plans to invest about 100 million dollars annually over the next three to five years in China. Microsoft already has 800 strong worker base in this country and has plans to expand this number to 3,000 in the next two years.