Microsoft Says It'll Bung A Billion Dollars To Aid Cloud Research
Microsoft will be expanding its philanthropic efforts over the next three years by donating $1 billion dollars in cloud services to help non-profit organisations and research.
The company wants to advance the public good and hopes it can find solutions for some of the difficult problems the world faces today.
To further support the non-profit community, Microsoft Philanthropies will be establishing a new global donation program that will make Microsoft Cloud Services – which includes Microsoft Azure, Power BI, CRM Online and the Enterprise Mobility Suite – more available and accessible for these organisations. Currently the company offers access to Office 365 for non-profits through a similar program. Microsoft is aiming to provide access to Microsoft Cloud Services for 70,000 nonprofits in the next three years.
Microsoft Research will be working alongside Microsoft Philanthropies to better serve the university research community. The two groups hope to expand the Microsoft Azure for Research program by 50 per cent to help facilitate the research done by university faculty. Over 600 research projects on six continents currently receive free cloud computing resources from this program.
Internet access is quickly becoming a necessity for communities to function and as a result of this Microsoft will be investing in organisations that are able to provide Internet connectivity in developing countries. Microsoft Philanthropies will be investing in low-cost Internet access technologies to strengthen last mile connectivity. It plans to support 20 projects in at least 15 countries globally by mid 2017.
Microsoft is already doing a great deal to give back to communities and organisations worldwide and its new global donation campaign will strengthen those efforts and help lead to innovations and improvements in the university research sector and in the nonprofit sector.
Image Credit: Shutterstock / Peteri
Author: Anthony Spadafora
View the original article here.
Published under license from ITProPortal.com
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