Microsoft Donates Large Sums of Money

Published: March 1, 2006

by Alex Woodie

It may have the largest research and development budget in the history of IT, but at the end of the day, Microsoft still finds enough in its seemingly bottomless piggy bank to give to good causes.

Topping the list is $41 million in software and cash that Microsoft's Community Affairs organization gave to NetHope and The Interagency Working Group on Emergency Capacity Building (ECB) project to help groups better collaborate in times of crises, such as the days following a national disaster like a hurricane, tsunami, or earthquake. Microsoft will donate software, including Windows XP, Office, and SharePoint Portal Server software to NetHope to rebuild its computer systems supporting disaster relief, while Microsoft will help ECB establish online collaboration and conduct a broad technology assessment across its seven agencies.

Another $1 million will be split among 23 academic researchers that Microsoft this week named as winners of the Microsoft Virtual Earth and Trustworthy Computing Request for Proposal (RFP) programs. The Virtual Earth RFP program rewards good ideas researchers come up with in the fields of digital photography, such as spatial and spatio-temporal databases, computer vision, and visualization, while the Trustworthy Computing RFP program targets advances made in boosting security, privacy, reliability, business practices, and secure software engineering.

Not to be outdone, Microsoft's Digital Inclusion RFP program dolled out $1.2 million to 17 academic researchers who are looking for ways technology can unlock the potential of people in underserved communities by making computing affordable, accessible and relevant.