“We hope the two way joint venture with the U.S. software giant will help Taiwan create a new era in high technology and play a front runner role in Asia and the world's software, despite Taiwan's leading position in hardware,” Ma told Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer during a meeting in the Presidential Office.

Ma made the comments after the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Microsoft signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) earlier Wednesday to jointly set up a cloud computing-based “Software and Services Excellence Center” in Taipei by the end of this year.

Ballmer arrived in Taiwan Tuesday for a two-day visit to mark the 20th anniversary of Microsoft Taiwan Corporation. He also witnessed the MOU signing.