14 DAY TRIAL // By Bill Gates' retirement from his day-to-day role with Microsoft in June 2008, Windows' install base surpassed the 1 billion milestone. Still, the 1 billion mark is nothing but a step toward the Redmond giant's next goal, namely a growth of 100% is its proprietary platform install base by 2015. However, for Microsoft going forward with spreading its technology means also getting involved in more and more humanitarian work. In 2007, the Redmond giant pledged its commitment to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, and ensuring that its technology has as much reach as possible with benefits reverberating across educational, health, environmental and job creation efforts.
“Microsoft began with the dream of a PC on every desk and in every home. Thirty years ago, this seemed impossible. But sure enough, information technology has profoundly changed the lives of the more than a billion people who have access to it. More than 5 billion people, however, still don’t have access to the technology and to the new opportunities to learn, connect, create and prosper that it provides. Now we’ve identified the next dream of bringing the benefits of technology to the next 1 billion by 2015,” revealed Pamela Passman, corporate vice president of Global Corporate Affairs at Microsoft.
Among the items on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals' list are dealing with global hunger, fighting AIDS, reduce child mortality, boost education, empower women, and even address environmental issues. Progress has indeed been made on all fronts, but the program is yet far from reaching its goals. At the same time, Microsoft's pledge to the UN Millennium Development Goals stretches much further than just its Windows operating system. On top of a comprehensive program of donations, the company is involved in initiatives such as Unlimited Potential and the Community Technology Skills Program, both focused on enabling access to information and communications technologies.
“Since 2003, Microsoft Research has been helping in the quest to develop a vaccine for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS. Using Microsoft high-performance computing software, our researchers run simulations of how HIV responds to attacks by the immune system, based on a description of the virus’s ribonucleic acid (RNA). The goal is to find correlations between the viral RNA and the human immune type, which would help medical researchers develop an effective immunogen - the part of a vaccine that triggers an immune response. The Microsoft researchers are doing this work in conjunction with several leading universities and research facilities, including Harvard University, Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of Oxford,” Passman added.