Microsoft donates cloud services to a good cause

$ XNUMX billion worth of resources for nonprofits and research

Cloud services

24.01.2016/XNUMX/XNUMX - software giant Microsoft  will increasingly make its resources in the area of ​​cloud computing available for a good cause. As CEO Satya Nadella lets know, around 70.000 non-profit organizations (NPOs) and 900 university research projects will use the company's own cloud services from Redmond free of charge over the next three years. The regular market value of the services donated in this way is given as one billion dollars (around 918 million euros).

Access to 70.000 facilities

"Microsoft supports organizations around the globe that pursue a charitable mission with a donation of cloud services - a technology that will change our generation the most," said Nadella at the start of the new philanthropic initiative. "This means that over 70.000 organizations will have access to a technology that will help them master our greatest societal challenges and which can ultimately also contribute to improving the situation of people and promoting new, steady growth."

"Cloud services can unlock secrets from data in a way that opens up new insights and leads to breakthroughs," added Brad Smith, Microsoft's chief legal officer, in a blog post. This not only benefits scientific and technological development. "This makes it easier to tackle the entire range of economic and social problems," says the expert.

A three-part initiative planned

Strictly speaking, the new initiative consists of three individual sub-areas: making cloud resources available for NPOs, expanding the corresponding access for university research institutions and helping to close the last gaps on the global internet map.

In a first step, Microsoft wants to expand its worldwide charity program in the software area to include cloud services such as Azure or the Enterprise Mobility Suite. Organizations and scientists then have the option of running their applications directly on Microsoft servers. At the same time, the use of software such as Office 365 is being made easier and expanded.

Source: press release (pte013 / 20.01.2016 / 11:50)

(mh)