SINGAPORE - Internet software pioneer Netscape Communications entered a partnership with Singapore's SilkRoute Ventures today, aiming to be Asia's top business software solutions provider, company officials said.
Netscape said SilkRoute, an Internet services group involved in projects with Japan's Matsushita and Singapore government institutions, would help it provide software solutions linking manufacturers with their customers via the computer in Asia.
Under the agreement, SilkRoute will provide solutions based on Netscape's ECXpert and PublishingXpert, core components of the CommerceXpert product line, an electronic commerce application. Singapore, Malaysia, India, and Thailand are the main countries targeted for expansion.
Meanwhile, Microsoft's investments in Southeast Asia will not be affected by the current economic turmoil because they are long-term in nature, Bill Gates said on Wednesday during a brief visit to Malaysia.
"We do everything on a long-term basis and the investments we are making in the region are not changed by the turmoil and economic crisis," Microsoft's chairman said after meeting with Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.
The US software king gave a ringing endorsement to Malaysia's fledgling high-technology zone during his hectic one-day visit to the country.
"It's very exciting here in Malaysia that the government is really embracing change, really embracing technology, and understands that the competitiveness of Malaysia in the future will depend on using information technology," Gates told some 3,000 technology executives, government officials and journalists in Kuala Lumpur.
He also said that Microsoft will invest "close to 1 million ringgit" (US$278,000) in an education program to promote "young Malaysian software programming talent."
Reuters contributed to this report.
