Posted on Sunday, May 13 2007 @ 20:05 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
Lenovo announced it signed a deal with Microsoft to buy Windows, Office and other applications for its PCs in a deal worth as much as $1.3 billion.
The agreement emulates one inked in 2006, worth $1.2 billion over one year, to pre-install Microsoft's Windows operating system software on Lenovo's computers, deemed a major step in China's efforts to combat piracy.
A Beijing-based spokesman for China's largest PC maker said on Thursday that the framework agreement, encompassing this fiscal year, had been signed on Wednesday in the United States.
"Our projection is the price tag could be as much as $1.3 billion for this fiscal year," the spokesman said. "Last year's agreement was executed very well."
Both firms hoped to advance "one of the most important goals of international business: the protection of intellectual property," Lenovo senior vice president Chen Shaopeng, who attended the signing ceremony, said in a statement on Thursday.
