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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer arrived in Korea on Wednesday night at the start of a hectic schedule that took him all over Seoul for meetings the following day. He had lunch in his car while moving to the next appointment in a minute-by-minute itinerary, Microsoft Korea said. Ballmer, the no. 2 in the U.S. software behemoth, is a long-time friend of company chairman Bill Gates.
At a press conference Thursday, Ballmer announced Microsoft will invest US$30 million in the next three years to help Korean software companies develop technology. The company has already invested another $30 million in an innovation center it established here last year. Ballmer described Korea as ”°a nation of innovation and high technology”± and added his firm will lay the groundwork for the nation to grow further.
The company is to help some 60 domestic software companies to develop technology in the fields of mobile technology, radio frequency identification (RFID) and home networking. It also plans to choose five among them and help them go overseas by growing them to software developers with global capabilities.
Ballmer attended a lecture for software companies at 3 p.m. and then moved on to a meeting with Education Minister Kim Jin-pyo to discuss expanding cooperation between the company and Korea in the field of education.
The CEO earlier in the day struck an agreement with Samsung Corp., the trading arm of Samsung Group, to create a home network automation system for apartments. He also gave a 40-minute keynote speech at 10 a.m. at the Seoul Digital Forum and signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Information and Telecommunication to support Korean software companies. Ballmer leaves Korea on Friday evening.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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