Author's entries

There has been a lot of talk in the press and in the halls of government recently about copyright: why we have it, how it is working, and whether it needs to be changed.

An exciting new initiative got underway in Europe yesterday called “Ideas Matter”.

The internet really started to ‘take off’ for businesses and consumers to use about 20 years ago.  Quite a bit of regulation has changed since that time to make internet ‘e-commerce’ easier, cheaper and safer.

A big question for governments and business at the moment, and indeed for users of the internet all over the world, is how personal data – a person’s identity, personal materials, financial or sensitive information – can be protected in a workable and effective way.

The European Commission has recently finished consulting on a series of questions that probably many of us have asked – how can we get more films, television broadcasts and other similar content (legally, of course!) over the internet on our computers, mobile phones, and tablet devices?

How can we make our economies succeed, provide jobs and build for the future?  These are the big questions on government leaders’ minds this year – not to mention those of business and of people everywhere.

There is a lot going on right now in the area of ‘cybersecurity’ – improving the security of the internet and dealing with cyberattacks on computers. The US has recently published its cybersecurity strategy, and European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes just reinforced the EU’s commitments in this area at the opening session of the Internet Governance Forum in...

Cloud computing is the crest of the wave of new and better computing possibilities – giving more efficient and cost-effective ways to run small and large organizations, and providing new applications and flexibility for individual and corporate users.  As you may have seen our CEO Steve Ballmer say, “Microsoft is ‘all in’ for the Cloud”. 

As those of you following policy issues in Europe are aware, data protection and online privacy are hot topics in Brussels at the moment.  In fact, these are getting a lot of attention from governments, companies and consumers all over the EU.  At the forefront of the discussion is the upcoming publication of the Commission’s proposal to update EU data protection rules, which should appear...

You might imagine that counterfeiting and piracy were a thing of the past, particularly in the EU, but sadly this is not the case for most industries, including the technology and software sectors.  For business software alone, the software piracy rate in western Europe stands at about 34%, one in three copies of business software in use in Europe is counterfeit or pirated. 

As you may know, the EU is reviewing its data protection laws, and recently I participated in a hearing hosted by the European Parliament’s EPP group on one of the many important questions being looked at: “Who pays for Data Protection?”

The protection of one’s personal information continues to garner attention as online services become increasing popular, whether it be social networking, communications via smartphone, or other aspects of cloud computing.

Brad Smith, Microsoft’s General Counsel and Senior Vice President, yesterday gave an interesting speech at the French Assemblée Nationale in Paris. Brad talked about the trends and possibilities of cloud computing, and what needs to be done in the way of better laws and improved industry and government cooperation to get ready for this technological shift. Microsoft also released...

One of the Commission’s long-time dreams, according to the recent Communication to the European Parliament, the Council, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, has been an EU “single market” where people can trade without barriers between all of its Member States. The digital revolution that launched buying, selling and services online is helping this...

This week has seen the launch of several initiatives by the European Commission to improve e-Government services for European citizens, including an overall action plan and a new Framework to make these services work better.

Microsoft’s announcement this week of new privacy-enhancing technologies in our upcoming Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) browser is our latest move towards giving users simple, clear options for controlling how their information is used on the internet.

I had the pleasure of opening the first European Summit of Microsoft’s Health Users Group this week in Brussels. The focus of the summit was on using cloud computing to create a “win-win” in the provisioning of wellbeing, that is, reducing costs while increasing the satisfaction of patients and health care providers.

In May, our Vice President for European Affairs John Vassallo wrote about the newly announced EU Digital Agenda program, which followed on from the call in the EU Ministers’ their April “Granada Declaration” to use information and communication technology (ICT) more effectively to help address Europe’s priorities. The actions that the Commission will be pursuing in the Digital...

The age of ‘cloud computing’ is dawning, which will allow our data, software and computing power to be on our desktop and extended online as and when needed. This will provide many new opportunities for businesses and other organisations to manage large amounts of data and activities securely, efficiently and cost-effectively.