Microsoft to donate cloud computing to non-profit organizations

New Delhi : Microsoft announced its plan to put a billion dollars’ worth of cloud computing power in the hands of non-profit groups and university researchers free of charge.

A philanthropic arm of the US software will donate the amount during the coming three years to 70,000 non-profit groups and researchers, said chief executive Satya Nadella at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“Among the questions being asked in Davos are these: If cloud computing is one of the most important transformations of our time, how do we ensure that its benefits are universally accessible?” Nadella said.

The philanthropic move comes as Microsoft continues adapting to a trend of people economically renting software as services in the Internet cloud instead of buying and installing programs on their machines.

“A careful read of those goals reveals the central role that data and cloud computing must play for analysis and action.”

Microsoft chief legal counsel Brad Smith said the massive computing power available in the cloud can help researchers mine insights and secrets from data. (ANI)