Picture credit: Amit Chattopadhyay/Flickr

Microsoft is to work with China Standard Software to co-develop cloud products for Chinese government agencies.

China Standard Software has created the server operating system NeoKylin Linux – a product aimed at reducing the Chinese government's need to outsource its operating systems.

Microsoft will now partner with the company to create, develop and sell both public and private cloud computing products that will function with China Standard's NeoKylin Linux and Microsoft's Hyper-V Open existing cloud operating systems. Their products can then, in turn, be sold to China's government agencies and offices to lessen the reliance on imported operating systems.

The deal will enable Microsoft to expand into the Chinese cloud market – a market which most IT experts are expecting to grow rapidly. A recent survey by research firm Gartner found that 55 per cent of Chinese respondents would like to spend more than 10 per cent of their total IT budget on cloud computing. This compared with 42 percent in Europe and 49 percent in the U.S.

Simon Leung, Microsoft's chairman and chief executive for the Greater China region, said in a joint statement released yesterday: “We seek to support our joint customers in China with solutions for the cloud.”

Han Naiping, president of China Standard Software, added: “Organisations are constantly looking for new ways to help them adapt and thrive in the marketplace, and nowhere is that more relevant than in the China market today.

“We are seizing the important opportunity to collaborate with Microsoft to deliver comprehensive, flexible, cloud-based solutions that will serve as a platform for business growth.”

The China Standard Software Company, or cs2c, is a Shanghai-based company founded in 2003. It specialises in the research, development, production and servicing of system software and cloud-based IT solutions for government offices, enterprise businesses and the education industry.