袁静雪:Maxthon Creates Largest Browser R&D Center in China//Competition urges establishment of Maxthon R&D

The Center will share Maxthon's innovative technology with other Chinese companies

BEIJING, Nov. 9 -- Maxthon International Ltd.  ( http://www.maxthon.com ) has announced the establishment of the largest browser research and development center in China.  CEO Jeff Chen, accompanied by dozens of business partners and user representatives, announced the creation of the Maxthon R&D Center at a press conference in Beijing, the location of the center.

The center has an initial capital investment of more than RMB2 million (approximately US$300,000).  Maxthon's goal is to develop an R&D center capable of competing internationally within two years, Chen said.  The center will provide support to Chinese-made browsers in addition to those developed by Maxthon itself.  It will also expedite the development of a variety of Internet technologies in China, including Web page display and security.

The center currently has a professional team of more than 30 researchers and developers, who have obtained two patents and who have several other new technologies in the patent process.  The technologies will be applied in the near future to provide internet users a higher quality browsing experience. Plans call for the recruitment of other technical experts to form a staff of 100.

According to Net Applications' latest research, the global market share of Maxthon is 1.55%, which exceeds that of Firefox 2 and comes close to the market share held by the Opera browser.  In China Maxthon has 22% of the browser market, making it the 2nd most popular browser behind Microsoft's Internet Explorer.  The China Internet Network Information Center reports Chinese Internet users exceeded 338 million in the first half of 2009.  These numbers translate to about 9 million Maxthon users in China alone.

"The strategic importance of the browser as the gateway to the Internet," Chen said, "is obvious in view of the substantial resources invested by Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Firefox in the last 2 years."

All of those companies have either introduced a new browser during the period or have upgraded established browsers.

"In the view of many people," Chen added, "Maxthon could be very ordinary as a business focused solely on browser development.  That's why we will assist Chinese Webware developers to join us as part of the 'Innovation Base' of Chinese-made Internet software.

"The unbundling of Internet Explorer from the European Windows editions in 2010 will break the Monopoly of IE and bring new opportunities to the worldwide browser market," Chen said.  "And the establishment of the Maxthon R&D Center will inevitably lead to a new wave of competition in the local browser market."

For more information, please contact:

Western Hemisphere

Ron White

Tel:   +1-210-683-1444

Email: ron@maxthon.com

http://twitter.com/Maxthonguy

Eastern Hemisphere

firs73 a.k.a Selena

Email: firs73@maxthon.net

Web:   http://twitter.com/firs73

In ZOL Software Summit 2009, huipk, in charge of Maxthon R&D Center, revealed the reason for the establishment of Maxthon R&D Center, and the future direction and development strategy of Maxthon. As in charge of Maxthon R&D Center, huipk gave a speech mostly surrounding technological issues of browser.

huipk admitted that Maxthon encounters some problems in competition. These problems urge the establishment of Maxthon R&D Center. "First, product development must be backed up by technology. Second, cross-platform strategy requires even greater technology support," huipk said.

Maxthon currently has pretty good market share in Russia. To compete globally, Maxthon also requires proprietary technology support. In 2009 Maxthon shifted from competing solely for market share to competing also for technology. The biggest browser R&D center in China is established to ensure high standard of Maxthon's core technology.

About future development of Maxthon, huipk said that Maxthon already employed independent browser engine in Maxthon 3.x, and will inject more resources to develop Maxthon 3.x alongside the IE based Maxthon 2.x. "Browser is a platform. Maxthon is willing to more openly connect websites to people, and eventually connect people to people. Maxthon will explore areas in community，and work together with business partners to provide internet users one stop service." huipk said.

editors notes :

huipk a.k.a Chen xiao xu, is the director of Maxthon R&D center.

ZOL is short for ZhongGuanCun On Line, www.zol.com is the largest IT portal in China engaging in IT news coverage and sale promotion. It is considered having the highest commercial value among professional IT portals in the Greater China.