Microsoft strengthens ties with Japan universities
Tue Jun 28, 2005
TOKYO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. is bolstering its joint research with Japanese universities, targeting such areas as security and natural language processing, the world's largest software maker said on Tuesday.
It will set up a collaboration network on July 1, hoping to promote exchange with researchers at top schools including the University of Tokyo, often called the Harvard of Japan.
Although Microsoft has established research centers in India, Britain and China as well as California's Silicon Valley and its headquarters in Redmond, Washington State, it has not made any major research efforts in Japan, partly due to a lack of programming talent at Japanese schools.
The move to strengthen ties with local universities underscores Microsoft's desire to stay in touch with the important Japanese market and close to the country's electronics makers including longtime partner Toshiba Corp.
"Japan has been a very innovative market for IT," Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates told a news conference. "There are some trends here that make this an excellent time. The universities are working harder to have public/private partnerships."
Gates, in Japan this week to meet academics and business partners, said he hoped the joint research would yield results in the areas of security, natural language understanding, speech recognition and user interface software.
"But we are also going to be supporting research into areas of science other than software. Things like biology and environmental type research," he said.
Microsoft did not disclose how much it will spend on the project but said it was part of an increased investment in research and development in Japan, seen as both a key growth market and a place to glean information on trends in mobile devices and consumer electronics.
Microsoft expects to spend $6.7 billion globally on research and development this year.
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