Software giants Microsoft has today made a second move towards becoming a major power in the British information sector with the announcement that it has signed an agreement public service broadcaster the BBC. This deal follows an agreement last November that saw Microsoft agree to fund the digitisation of 25 million pages of out of copyright British Library held material.

The deal with the BBC is to investigate new ways of developing digital services, including Web 2.0 technologies and ways of sharing online content. According to its own website, the BBC said the deal is non-exclusive.

Controversial BBC director general Mark Thompson has made it his mission at the Beeb to develop new technologies for delivering BBC content and has announced a strategy of setting up technological partnerships with technology service providers. The BBC reports that its director general has been in the US and signed the agreement in person with Bill Gates.

Together the two corporations will look into  new search, navigation, distribution and content enablement systems. The BBC confirmed that it is also in discussions with online audio and video service provider Real Networks, computer infrastructure provider IBM and the online game Second Life.

The last 18 months has seen Microsoft put considerable efforts into building relationships with content providers. Throughout this year Microsoft has been busy digitising 25 million pages of out of copyright material held by the British Library which will appear on its MSN BookSearch web service. Microsoft is also a partner with the library in developing the National Digital Library which will capture electronic content to archive for future access. And 12 months ago Microsoft joined web search rivals Yahoo as a member of the Open Content Alliance (OCA) to digitise books and the world libraries. MSN BookSearch will deliver academic material, as well as periodicals online.