Increasingly, big companies are finding the Chinese market to be the spark plug they may need to jump start their ailing businesses and the battle ground to prove themselves in competition. Sun Microsystems takes on Microsoft directly in announcing that it has reached an agreement to install its Linux desktop software on more than 200 million computers in China. In other sectors, 3Com, in direct competition with Cisco Systems, announced a deal with Huawei Technologies to sell networking equipment to business in China.