Seatlle, Sept 24: Microsoft Corp. has said that it would launch a new initiative with Hewlett-Packard Co. to deploy the software giant's .NET services to businesses.
The alliance between Microsoft and the No.1 personal computer maker, which both companies said was one of the largest between the two, will involve an investment of more than $50 million and create an army of thousands to sell, maintain and design .NET systems.

Microsoft's executives at its Redmond, Washington headquarters are betting the company on .NET, a wide range of software, standards and services that aims to tie information between different programs and devices together over the Internet.

"We have a fairly significant commitment to Microsoft's .NET platform," said Rick Fricchione, Vice President of Enterprise Microsoft Services at HP.
Palo Alto, California-based HP said more than 5,000 salespeople would be trained to sell .NET and more than 3,000 service professionals will be certified to work on .NET, while a new group of about 2,000 would be trained to design .NET systems. Bureau Report