Microsoft plans to spend $400 million on software and business development in India over the next three years, strengthening ties with Indian business partners. Chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates said Wednesday that Microsoft will supply Web-building software free of charge to the government of Bangalore, often dubbed the Silicon Valley of the East, as part of an E-governance initiative.

Some $20 million of the $400 million investment, announced Tuesday, will be part of Project Shiksha in India, used to promote technology education to assist in training about 80,000 school teachers and 3.5 million students in government-run schools. Microsoft will set up 10 IT Academy Centres for computer education in partnership with state education departments, and will collaborate with more than 2,000 school labs.

Microsoft will assign more of its sales team and software engineers to work with Indian software companies such as Infosys Technologies, Satyam Computer Services, and Wipro. Microsoft also will increase staffing of its Hyderabad software-development center.

In addition, Microsoft will develop local Hindi language versions of Office, beginning with the next version of Office due out next year, code-named Office 11. It also will develop a Hindi version of Windows XP. And Microsoft will work with local partners to add Bengali and Malayalam language support to Windows XP.

On Monday, Gates pledged $100 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to fight AIDS in India.