Microsoft wants to use the cloud to make the world a better place.
According to a post by the company’s corporate vice president and Head of Microsoft Philanthropies, Microsoft is making its cloud service Azure available to eligible nonprofit organizations for free.
This contributes to Microsoft’s previous commitment of $1 billion to ensure that its cloud services are used for the public good. In a statement posted to Microsoft Philanthropies’ blog, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella asked how one would make it possible to use the public cloud for the public good.
“The ‘public cloud’ refers to massive, privacy-protected data and storage services rendered over a network for public use. Cloud computing makes it possible to reason over quantities of data to produce specific insights and intelligence. It converts guesswork and speculation into predictive and analytical power,” wrote Nadella.
When the announcement was made in January, Microsoft promised $1 billion in cloud computing resources to nonprofits and NGOs worldwide over the next three years. This past week, Microsoft made Azure broadly available to nonprofits through a credit program.
Nonprofits like CONIN and Partners for Health were called upon to test the program, and found that cloud capabilities dramatically increased their output capability.
Nadella concluded in a statement that, “philanthropy is a start, but to truly harness the public cloud for public good, businesses, governments and NGOs must come together with a shared vision and relentless passion to improve the human condition and drive new growth equally.”
Related: Microsoft just added artificial intelligence features to Office 365 and Dynamics 365
[source]Microsoft[/source]
MobileSyrup may earn a commission from purchases made via our links, which helps fund the journalism we provide free on our website. These links do not influence our editorial content. Support us here.
