Monday, 13 November 2006

China.com Launches USD 20 Mln Web 2.0 Developer Program

China.com, an Internet services provider in China and a Hong Kong listed subsidiary of CDC, has unveiled its Web 2.0 Developer Program, which includes USD 20 million allocated for investment in selected web development partners. China.com will seek...

China.com, an Internet services provider in China and a Hong Kong listed subsidiary of CDC, has unveiled its Web 2.0 Developer Program, which includes USD 20 million allocated for investment in selected web development partners. China.com will seek to establish strategic relationships with local Web 2.0 companies to accelerate the development of products and services targeted specifically for the China market, the company said.

China.com will select small to medium size developers with the technological skill, innovative vision and deep understanding of what drives the Chinese Internet community to develop products and services in online video, social networking, blogs, 3G and broadband content and mobile search, as per a statement issued by the company.

Through direct cash investments, equity investments, lines of credit or a combination of these, China.com will invest up to USD 20 million in selected Web 2.0 development partners. China.com will also leverage relationships with advertisers and broad knowledge of the market as one of the first Internet companies in China to provide marketing, advertising and sales support to its partners for their products and services. As part of the strategic partnership, China.com's development partners will also be able to leverage the extensive market coverage of the CDC family of companies including millions of growing subscribers of CDC Mobile and China.com and 37 million registered users of CDC Games, the company said.

"We are very excited at the potential for Web 2.0 in China and our goal is to be one of the leaders of this vast emerging market," said Dr. Xiaowei Chen, Chief Financial Officer of China.com. "We believe that with our strong financial resources, deep partnership with technology companies like Google and Microsoft and broad understanding of Chinese Netizens, we are well placed to help our Web 2.0 development partners fully monetise their products and services. We feel that this program will bring as much benefit to China's Web 2.0 development community as the CDC Games' online game developer program and CDC Software's franchise partner program have brought to the online gaming and enterprise software communities. We have been in negotiations with a number of top Web 2.0 developers in China and hope to finalise investments in several companies in the next few quarters."