[Nov. 3 2003 from Shenzhen]

(Beijing Oct. 31) Today Tencent Technology (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd. and IBM held contract signing ceremony and officially declared the establishment of strategic cooperation and the joint entry into the Enterprise Instant Messaging (EIM) market. As a win-win deal Tencent's strong native operations and services plus IBM's leading software technologies products and solutions will elevate the application of enterprise real time collaboration in China's market. In the press conference Tencent also launched its RTX real time collaboration version with IBM QuickPlace integrated. This product is an upgraded version following RTX standard version launched in September 2003. This version is tailed for large and medium sized enterprises with more features like better openness and collaboration performance. As representatives from both parties the following people attended the conference: Mr. Zhang Zhidong VP and CTO of Tencent Mr. Xu Chenye VP and CIO of Tencent Mr. Zhan Weibiao GM of Tencent's Enterprise IM department Mr. Lin Hongyu IBM software department's WebSphere Greater China region GM Mr. Huang Ming IBM software department's South China and Southwest China region GM Mr. Zuo Hong IBM software department China Region's marketing manager.

With the start of E-Business era the concept of "Real Time Enterprise" (RTE) becomes more and more popular. In today's world timely communication will determine the fate of the enterprise. Therefore the core of RTE is to make effective use of internet technology and instant messaging services to eliminate any delay in key business processes and improve the enterprise's core competence through more convenient and efficient collaboration. The closer combination of enterprise's core application system and the real time collaboration technologies makes it crucial for powerful real time collaboration solution to building successful RTE.

As the largest instant messaging service provider in Asia Tencent keeps enterprise instant messaging as one of the major businesses. Thanks to solid technology capabilities and rich operation experience Tencent has won hails from many SMEs in recent years and now enjoys nearly 100000 registered enterprise users. In September 2003 Tencent launch its core technology brand RTX-Tengxuntong showing once again the company's capabilities and determinations in entering the enterprise instant messaging market.

The enterprise instant messaging market has huge potentials and rapid growth. The realization of RTE still has a long way to go and require the cooperation of a lot of companies to build the RTE industry value chain. Therefore with an open and collaborative attitude Tencent cooperates with many outstanding IT enterprises both domestically and internationally such as UFsoft Kingdee and Kingsoft. The alliance with IBM blue giant in the IT industry is an important move in Tencent's cooperation-building processes to entry into enterprise instant messaging market.

As a leading instant messaging technology provider IBM focuses on providing enterprises with effective collaboration application and instant messaging solutions so as to improve the enterprise's core competence in the E-business era. As a world leader in the collaboration and interpersonal interaction market IBM's Lotus software has been the most popular collaboration application software in the enterprise market. According to IDC's report in year 2002 IBM's Lotus Domino/Notes occupied 61% market share in China's collaboration application market. Moreover IBM owns leading business integration portal platforms which can realize the seamless connection of the enterprise's various core business processes (including ERP SCM etc) to well satisfy diversified integration demands.

As a perfect match between leading technology and excellent service the cooperation between Tencent and IBM represents their pursuing spirit of "openness" and "integration". According to Mr. Zhan Weibiao GM of Tencent's enterprise IM department the IM service platform that Tencent tailored for enterprises-Tengxuntong (RTX) real time collaboration version with IBM's Lotus QuickPlace product integrated can provide enterprises with outstanding web based collaboration solution. IBM's leading IT platform plus Tencent's versatile services in the IM area will enhance the IM application development in China's market and help more enterprises into authentic "Real Time Enterprises".

The release of the Tencent RTX real time collaboration version was only the beginning of the cooperation between the two companies. In the next stage both parties will further cultivate the potentials of IBM Portal Express and offer more online services (e.g. online HR system CRM and other online information management systems) so as to further combine the enterprise's core application with real time collaboration. The final mutual direction is to realize comprehensive interconnection between the core service capabilities and the different IT infrastructures of the enterprise in real time collaboration area thus further promote commercial based public Web Services and create change-adapting E-business models with Chinese characteristics.

The cooperation this time is also tightly connected to IBM software's development strategy in the SME market. IBM has already invested heavily into the SME market. In 2003 in order to satisfy SME users' requirement in the reliability expandability and maintainability of IT systems IBM software group put forward an "SME Excel Plan" focused on helping SMEs to realize change-adapting E-business. IBM also developed a series of tailored Express software solutions for SMEs in terms of design pricing and marketing and promoted the application of this series of solutions in the SME market through enhancing the cooperation with partners and new channel supporting plans. According to Mr. Huang Ming IBM software department's South China and Southwest China region GM the choice of Tencent as their partner is because the two parties have another mutual goal-to provide SME users in China with more convenient and money-saving IT services through promoting the real time collaboration application among SMEs.

As a rapid growing market the prospect of the enterprise real time collaboration is promising. Thanks to their preferential position Tencent and IBM both had confidence in the prospect of the cooperation. Mr. Zhang Zhidong VP and CTO of Tencent expressed: "We are very happy to be able to establish long term in-depth cooperation with IBM an IT world leader. IBM's advanced technology platform rich enterprise implementation experience huge market service system and partner channels will undoubtedly help Tencent in entering the enterprise instant messaging market to offer more Chinese enterprises excellent operation services of Tencent." Mr. Lin Hongyu GM in Greater China region of IBM software department's WebSphere concluded: "With its rich online operations experience and huge number of SME users in China's market Tencent no doubt is one of the best partners for IBM in the enterprise real time collaboration market. As a win-win deal IBM will promote SME's real time collaboration application and services along with Tencent striving to improve the core competence of Chinese enterprises and to popularize the change-adapting E-commerce."