Microsoft Corp. and South Korea's Samsung Electronics said on Wednesday they had agreed to jointly develop and market consumer PCs and electronic home appliances. Microsoft founder and chairman Bill Gates and Chin Dae-je, president and CEO of Samsung Electronics' digital media business, signed a memorandum of understanding in Seoul over the deal. Samsung said the deal had no monetary value. "The two companies intend to work together to develop and market a new breed of products based on Samsung hardware and Microsoft Windows software," Gates said in a statement. Gates is visiting several Asian nations to promote Microsoft's latest technology. In South Korea, his latest stop, around 56 percent of the population, or 24.1 million people use the Internet, according to the latest data from the Ministry of Information and Communication. Samsung Electronics shares closed up 3.14 percent at $126.6 on Wednesday.
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