Microsoft sets alliance with Indonesia's Indosat

JAKARTA (JP): State-owned PT Indosat telecommunications company has set up a strategic alliance with multi-billion-dollar U.S. software company Microsoft to provide Indonesia Interactive, a new interactive Internet service.

Indosat's project manager for product development, Susilo Dwi Wiyanto, said here yesterday that Indonesia Interactive, nicknamed i2, would be launched tomorrow.

"In the alliance, Indosat is using Microsoft Commercial Internet System (MCIS) in Indosatnet," he said.

Indosatnet, the Indosat's Internet service was launched in April 1996.

Wiyanto said i2 would feature news, business information, stock quotes, tour and travel information, entertainment, news and chat-lines, net meetings and movie previews.

"The most important thing is that MCIS will allow Internet users to set personalization. This service allows users to choose selected subjects based on their interests," he said.

He said the Microsoft software would also search the web for Internet users.

"The system will also offer online dealings or E-Commerce," he said, adding that Citibank was committed to supporting the service.

A number of companies supported the new service, he said. "Among them are the Jakarta Stock Exchange, Prambors radio, Sarinah department store, Berca computer store, and 20th Century Fox."

Wiyanto said Indosat and Microsoft had not formed a vendor- buyer relationship. "This is an alliance in which each party can promote each other."

Microsoft's group manager for public network sales in Southeast Asia, Chong Yoke Sim, said her company was glad Indosat was applying Microsoft technology.

"This is Microsoft's first alliance with Indonesia," she said, adding that the company would work closely with Indosat.

She said that under the alliance, Indosat and Microsoft agreed to arrange a series of cooperation programs including joint marketing and human resources development.

"In the future project will be multimedia via satellite in the broadband area," she said.

Microsoft has established several other alliances with Southeast Asian countries including Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia.

The company, headed by Bill Gates, will participate in Multimedia Super Corridor, a huge multimedia project in Malaysia. (icn)