Bombay to Beijing

India's largest softwaremaker is moving forward with its plan to create a Beijing software company with a consortium of Chinese companies and Microsoft.

The joint venture represents an attempt to bring India's highly successful skilled software services to China, which has grown into a manufacturing powerhouse but still lags behind India in software and services. Microsoft, in helping to broker the deal, stands to gain a bigger toehold in the burgeoning Chinese market.

The deal would "create China's first world-scale software company, which will serve as a model for other Chinese companies," said S. Ramadorai, chief executive of the Indian firm Tata Consultancy Services.

The new company will serve local Chinese clients and consider expanding into international markets such as Japan, South Korea and the United States, Tata Consultancy officials said.

The formation of the company comes at a time when American labor unions and other critics say the United States has lost 400,000 high-quality technology jobs to India and China.