Lenovo Group Limited has signed a deal with Microsoft Corporation to buy Windows, Office and other software suites for its personal computers in a deal worth $1.3 billion. This one succeeds what Lenovo found as a successful $1.2 billion agreement in 2006 to pre-install Microsoft"s Windows operating system software on Lenovo"s computers, deemed a major step in China"s efforts to combat piracy. Both firms hoped to advance "one of the most important goals of international business: the protection of intellectual property," said Lenovo senior vice president Chen Shaopeng. Details of the 2007 purchasing agreement would be finalized later.
Lenovo now sells pre-installed Microsoft software on computers sold in more than 65 countries around the world.