The deal comes less than a week after Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said the software giant would not sell cut-rate versions of Windows in China. The agreement is expected to help Digital China, which started off as a hardware distributor, take a step toward realising its ambition of becoming a software development and IT services firm.
Digital China, which spun off from Legend Group two years ago, has been developing software on Microsoft's .Net platform on a limited scale, particularly for office automation and logistics management.
The new memorandum of understanding, signed earlier this week, expands the scope further to cover a large number of key sectors such as telecommunications, finance, customs, taxation and e-government.
Microsoft's much-publicized .Net initiative is an attempt to bring software and online related services and applications under a single umbrella.
