Microsoft Extends Partnerships Across Europe to Boost Scientific Research Through Client Plus Cloud Technology

VENUS-C consortium prepares to announce open call to European researchers, while Microsoft extends further cloud computing resources to France's INRIA and University of Nottingham researchers in the U.K.

BRUSSELS, October 27, 2010 - During a keynote address today at the Open Grid Forum, Dan Reed,
corporate vice president, eXtreme Computing Group and Technology Strategy &
Policy at Microsoft Corp., detailed three programmes that will strengthen the
capabilities of the European research community by providing scientific
researchers across Europe with access to advanced client plus cloud computing
resources and technical support as part of the company's global cloud
research engagement initiative launched earlier this year.

    (Logo: photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20000822/MSFTLOGO)
    (Logo: www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000822/MSFTLOGO)

"Cloud computing can transform how research is conducted, allowing
scientists around the world to explore and share rich, diverse
multidisciplinary data sets with their own familiar desktop tools," Reed
said. "Through these grants and this global initiative, we seek to make
simple yet powerful tools available that any researcher can use, empowering
the research community broadly in new ways. Our goal is ultimately to
accelerate global scientific exploration, discovery and results."

Microsoft has initiated three partnerships in Europe-with Europe's
VENUS-C (Virtual Multidisciplinary EnviroNments USing Cloud Infrastructures)
consortium, with France's INRIA (National Institute for Research in Computer
Science and Control), and with the U.K.'s University of Nottingham Horizon
Institute.

Microsoft is a major partner in and initiator of the VENUS-C consortium,
a project co-funded by the European Commission under the 7th Framework
Programme to deploy cloud computing services for researchers across Europe.
The consortium will soon be announcing an open call to European researchers
to use the new resource and to apply for funding to support experimentation.

VENUS-C is currently developing and deploying a cloud computing service
for research and industry communities throughout Europe to demonstrate the
feasibility and potential of a scientific cloud for Europe that is integrated
with the existing European grid system. Microsoft's contribution to the
project is a substantial Windows Azure data and compute capability and teams
of researchers, including one based at the European Microsoft Innovation
Center in Germany.

VENUS-C aims to facilitate and empower stakeholders through deployment of
more easy-to-use cloud services across a spectrum of user communities
including biomedicine, civil engineering and data for science.

"The VENUS-C project is one of the first attempts to prove that clouds
and European Research Grids can interoperate and to demonstrate the
sustainability of the scientific clouds," said Andrea Manieri, coordinator of
VENUS-C."We are proud to lead this consortium; Microsoft is the perfect
partner to help make VENUS-C successful."

In addition, Microsoft will expand its European partnerships with INRIA
in France and the University of Nottingham 'Horizon' project in the UK, which
is aimed at digital economy research. Both recipients will be provided with
three years of free Windows Azure usage, which delivers on-demand compute and
storage to host, scale and manage Web applications on the Internet through
Microsoft datacenters. Microsoft researchers and developers will also work
with each recipient to equip them with a set of common tools, applications
and data collections that can be shared with the broad academic community and
will also provide their expertise in research, science and cloud computing.

"We are excited that our neuroscience imaging project will have access to
this cloud resource and the continued collaboration," said Jean-Jacques Levy,
director of the Microsoft Research-INRIA Joint Centre, which was founded by
INRIA, Microsoft and Microsoft Research Cambridge and pursues fundamental,
long-term research in formal methods, software security and the application
of computer science research to other sciences.

"The University of Nottingham is delighted to be partnering with
Microsoft on the use of cloud computing within our Horizon programme," said
Derek McAuley, director of Horizon. "Horizon is funded through the Research
Councils UK Digital Economy programme to investigate how new digital
technologies can be designed that transform the way we live, work and play,
factoring in the essential human elements of privacy and behaviour, together
with an understanding of the emerging business models. Cloud computing is one
of these technical advances that is already transforming business, and there
is much more to come."

These partnerships, aimed at unlocking the collaborative potential of the
cloud in Europe, demonstrate Microsoft's commitment to helping Europe realize
the full potential of the cloud, specifically in support of the EU's 2020
goals for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. They also advance the
goals of the recently announced Innovation Union, a strategy that carries the
ambition to make the EU a world-class science base. They will also assist in
strengthening the European Research Area.

Microsoft announced similar partnerships with the National Science
Foundation (NSF)
(www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2010/feb10/02-04nsfpr.mspx) in the
U.S. and the National Institute of Informatics (NII)
(www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2010/sep10/09-30msniipr.mspx) in
Japan earlier this year. With the addition of three new European grants, the
company aims to continue its support of researchers and academics by
extending the capabilities of powerful, easy-to-use PC, Web and mobile
applications through cloud services. Ultimately, Microsoft seeks to broaden
researcher capabilities, foster collaborative research communities and
accelerate global scientific discovery for the benefit of all.

About VENUS-C

VENUS-C (Virtual multidisciplinary EnviroNments USing Cloud
Infrastructures) is a pioneering project for the European Commission's
Framework Programme 7 that draws its strength from a joint co-operation
bringing together industrial partners and scientific user communities to
develop, test and deploy an industry-quality cloud computing service for
Europe.

Its aim is to develop and deploy a cloud computing service for research
and industry communities in Europe by offering an industrial-quality,
service-oriented platform based on virtualisation technologies facilitating a
range of research fields through easy deployment of end-user services. The
user communities involved are: bioinformatics, system biology, drug
discovery, civil protection, civil engineering and digital libraries. Find
more information here (www.venus-c.eu/Pages/Home.aspx).

The following organisations are involved in the core VENUS-C project:

    - Project Coordinator: Engineering Ingegneria Informatica S.p.a. (ENG),
      Italy
    - Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), Spain
    - Centre for Computational and Systems Biology (CoSBi), Italy
    - Collaboratorio, Italy
    - Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy
    - European Charter of Open Grid Forum, U.K.
    - European Microsoft Innovation Center (EMIC), Germany
    - Kungliga Tekniska Hoegskolan (KTH), Sweden
    - Microsoft Research Ltd. (MRL), U.K.
    - Microsoft Innovation Center, Greece
    - Technion, Israel
    - Universidad Politecnica de Valencia, Spain
    - University of the Aegean, Greece
    - University of Newcastle, U.K.

About INRIA

The French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and
Control (INRIA) is a public science and technology institution, under the
supervision of the French Ministries of Research and Industry. INRIA employs
2,800 researchers, of which more than 1,000 are Ph.Ds. They work in more than
168 project teams of which the majority collaborate with other organisations,
universities and higher education institutions.

About The University of Nottingham and the Horizon Institute

Horizon is a Research Institute at the University of Nottingham engaged
in Digital Economy Research. This new venture represents an initial pounds
sterling 40 million investment by Research Councils UK, the University of
Nottingham and over 40 academic and industrial partners in both a Research
Hub and Doctoral Training Centre within the RCUK Digital Economy programme.

Horizon will focus on the role of 'always on, always with you' ubiquitous
computing technology in the Digital Economy. Building on the Digital Britain
plan, Horizon will investigate the technical developments needed if
electronic information is to be controlled, managed and harnessed-for
example, to develop new products and services -for societal benefit. Find
more information here (https://www.horizon.ac.uk).

About Microsoft Research

Founded in 1991, Microsoft Research is dedicated to conducting both basic
and applied research in computer science and software engineering.
Researchers focus on more than 55 areas of computing and collaborate with
leading academic, government and industry researchers to advance the state of
the art. Microsoft Research has expanded over the years to eight locations
worldwide and a number of collaborative projects that bring together the best
minds in computer science to advance a research agenda based on their unique
talents and interests. Microsoft Research has locations in Redmond, Wash.;
Cambridge, Mass.; Silicon Valley, Calif.; Cambridge, England; Beijing, China;
and Bangalore, India, and also conducts research at the Cairo Microsoft
Innovation Center in Egypt; European Microsoft Innovation Centre in Aachen,
Germany; and the eXtreme Computing Group in Redmond. Microsoft Research
collaborates openly with colleges and universities worldwide to enhance the
teaching and learning experience, inspire technological innovation, and
broadly advance the field of computer science. More information can be found
at www.research.microsoft.com.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in
software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize
their full potential.

For more information about Microsoft's vision for democratizing
client-plus-cloud computing, visit here
(research.microsoft.com/en-us/labs/xcg/mscloudwp.pdf).

Mike Houlihan, +1-503-443-7000, mhoulihan at waggeneredstrom.com, or Rapid Response Team, +1-503-443-7070, rrt at waggeneredstrom.com, all of Waggener Edstrom Worldwide for Microsoft / NOTE TO EDITORS: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft's Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.