Zi Corp. taps into massive Chinese schoolmarket
Thursday July 8, 5:42 pm Eastern Time
CALGARY, July 8 (Reuters) - A new joint venture that will open the door to a
massive Chinese market sent Zi Corp. (Toronto:ZIC.TO - news) (Nasdaq:ZICA -
news) stock soaring on Thursday.
The issue gained 60 Canadian cents on the Toronto Stock Exchange to reach
C$2.90 by late afternoon, up more than 26 percent, while it rose 39 cents on the Nasdaq to hit $1.94.
The Calgary-based software developer has launched a Hong Kong subsidiary with partner China Huayu Ltd.
that is aimed at supplying China's 975,000 schools and more than 240 million students.
The company has formed Huayu Zi Software Technology Ltd. with China Huayu Development Corp., a
state-owned business that develops and distributes material and equipment to China's schools.
The new venture, which is 85 percent owned by Zi Corp., will sell software that allows students to use their own
language on computer equipment.
With Zi software, Chinese characters can be entered using stroke symbols found on keyboards or keypads,
rather than typing a phonetic spelling of a character based on English.
The software, which will be bundled with other software packages and computers, works with equipment
ranging from PCs to hand-held computers and cellular phones.
''It connects the technology to their language,'' said Carol Kim, manager of investor and media relations at Zi
Corp.
($1=$1.47 Canadian)
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