Lusaka — MICROSOFT South East Africa country manager Pierre Nel has said his company would support Zambia's Information and Communication Technology (ICT) policy.

And communications and transport minister Abel Chambeshi implored organisations to partner with government in accelerating national development through ICTs.

Speaking at a cocktail party on Tuesday following the handover of Microsoft XP student and teacher software worth about K250 million to the Ministry of Communication and Transport by Next Technology (Z) limited, Nel said Microsoft would establish an effective partnership in Zambia.

He said there would be two distribution partners for Zambia to bring technology and act as brokers and that Microsoft would help train IT partners.

Nel said Microsoft personnel would meet with over 200 IT professionals in Zambia to share ideas.

And opportunities manager for Microsoft's emerging markets Africa team, Lanre Onasanya, said it was only through education that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) would be achieved.

He said Microsoft had over 650 partners and was operating in more than 42 countries to help Africa realise its full potential and that it had partnered with governments for development through sustainable projects.

Onasanya said Microsoft was also working with the University of Zambia (UNZA) in capacity building and would sponsor two lecturers for technical training.

"Within the next two months we will be able to locate two training institutions to help with training. We are committed to supporting governments in Africa to deliver more and better services to society," Onasanya said.

He said Microsoft would outline how the Zambian computing environment was evolving, how computers and the Internet were becoming a part of life.

Onasanya said for business and government, the company would also launch "SQL Server 2005".

He said it would be an ideal solution for government to centralise information from different departments.

Onasanya said Microsoft believed that technology could bolster the already sweeping changes being seen in the way governments communicate with and serve their citizens.