While many only talk and prospect the possibility of penetrating the Chinese market, MSN made a bold move and inaugurated yesterday MSN China, an all Chinese web portal; Microsoft hopes that this beach head will allow the company to achieve a better position on the second largest online market in the world.

The portal will be accessed through the Shanghai MSN Network Communications Ltd, which is the result of the association between Microsoft and a company supervised by China's government, Alliance Investment Ltd.

The giant from Redmond announced that this portal will offer a large quantity of information and content, but also other communication services besides Hotmail and Messenger which already exist in China. Actually, the instant messaging services provided in China are highly appreciated, the proof being the 7 million subscribers.

Still, according to studies carried out by MSN, compared to the broadband Internet or mobile communication services, the instant messaging technology is still underdeveloped, and by launching this portal the company tries to revitalize the service. However, although Microsoft organized a press conference in Beijing, no estimates related to the financial expectation and the number of users that will access the portal, but considering that China has approximately 100 million Internet surfers Microsoft has all the reasons to be optimistic.