14) The State Development and Reform Commission in China to cooperate with Microsoft and TCS on Software-outsourcing JV

The China Securities Journal reported, citing unidentified sources that the State Development and Reform Commission (SDRC) have reached an cooperation deal with India-based Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Microsoft Corp. to establish a joint venture providing software outsourcing services.

Without giving detailed information about the specific figure, the newspaper added that Tata Consultancy Services will hold the joint venture’s 65% stake and SDRC will hold the remaining share.

The new company is to locate Zhongguancun Software Park, Beijing, and it is supposed to recruit five thousand employees with twenty percent software engineers coming from India.

According to the newspaper, the new company is about to be engrossed in Europe, the Asia Pacific and US offshore software development markets, including China’s domestic offshore outsourcing market.

The newspaper claimed that the new company is intended to be included in the list within the following 10 years, though deeper infomation were not revealed.

It is estimated that the offshore software outsourcing market in China will be 4.7 billion USD by the end of 2009, based on the data worked out by IDC.