Symbio Group to Launch Two New University Software Institutes in China's Weihai City

ROCKVILLE, MD and BEIJING -- (MARKET WIRE) -- April 17, 2007 -- To help meet the global demand for technology trained university graduates, The Symbio Group (www.symbio-group.com) today announced that it has signed groundbreaking agreements with the China Weihai Municipal Government, the Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) at Weihai, and Shandong University at Weihai, to establish two first-of-a-kind university-level software engineering institutes in Weihai, China.

The Symbio Group, a global software outsourcer that leverages the resources of China, said that this will be the first time a software company or technology outsourcing company has established a full four-year undergraduate software engineering school in China. Interestingly, this will be the first global software engineering curriculum in China, with professors from the U.S. teaching students in China about global innovation. The new university programs will launch in the fall of 2007.

Called the Symbio Software Institute at HIT and the Symbio Software Institute at Shandong University in Weihai, Symbio will be offering a four-year undergraduate program, a three-year Master's program, and shorter intensive training programs for students. The curriculum of these new programs will focus on technology skills, with a heavy emphasis on problem solving, logic and thinking skills, as well as professional and language skills. University staff, augmented by Symbio experts and Symbio-recruited university professors from the United States, will teach the courses.

"With the establishment of these software engineering schools, our mission has extended beyond outsourcing, to become a truly global software company focused on innovation," said Jacob Hsu, president of Symbio. "The launch of our Symbio Software Institutes is the first step of our innovation strategy, and serves as the foundation by which we can train generations of Chinese engineers to become global citizens and support the creation of innovation in China."

In addition to the Symbio Software Institutes, Symbio is establishing two Advanced Research Centers at both the Harbin Institute of Technology and Shandong University in Weihai. The purpose of these Advanced Research Centers, staffed by university faculty, Master's and Doctorate students working in dedicated lab space (over 25,000 square feet each), is to develop cutting-edge research. Symbio is already working with clients to identify long-term research projects to be hosted in these Advanced Research Centers, with the intellectual property developed belonging to the companies that provide research grants.

"Our vision is to build an innovation ecosystem at Symbio that will enable our clients to leverage an elite and scalable group of technologists specifically trained to think and solve problems, working in our state-of-the-art technology centers in China to develop tomorrow's technologies," said Mr. Hsu.

"Symbio selected Weihai for this groundbreaking effort because the environment in Weihai is conducive to creating a sphere of innovation. It contains the two of the top universities in China and it is a forward-thinking city, having recently won the UN Habitat Scroll of Honor last year, the only city in China with this distinction," Hsu pointed out.

About Symbio

Symbio leverages China outsourcing teams to help companies become global leaders. It helps organizations accelerate their software development and testing cycles by optimal application of its global resources and delivery models. Symbio also localizes and supports technology products for any language or locale. Founded in 1994 by a group of engineers from IBM's international research and development labs in Asia, Symbio now functions as a cost-effective and highly efficient extension of an organization's development, testing and globalization teams. Symbio's clients are among the world's elite companies including: AOL, BMC, CA, Citigroup, EMC, FileNet, IBM, MasterCard, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, Nokia, Oracle, Palm, Sony, as well as more than 300 other leading organizations.

For further information on Symbio, please visit www.symbio-group.com, call 650-356-1981, or email marketing@symbio-group.com.

Contact Information: For more media information, contact: Lisa Hendrickson LCH Communications for the Symbio Group 516-767-8390 Email Contact