Small businesses and start-ups are the essential engine of Europe’s economy.
We work in building up a partner network to help accelerate growth by Europe’s SME's. Through programmes like BizSpark, we provide European businesses access to cutting-edge technology, access to marketing expertise, financing streams and intellectual property licensing, and advocacy for a more dynamic policy framework for entrepreneurship.
We want to help these young companies succeed, as their new business ideas can open up new market opportunities across industries and for us as well, either by reselling Microsoft software or by developing new products and services using our platforms.
Technology is playing a significant role in helping Europe’s SME's to remain competitive in challenging economic times and build the sustainable recovery. Smart technology helps to save money and save energy costs, identify new business models that will drive future growth and jobs, and acquire the skills needed for those new jobs.
Our European community of partners has more than 146,000 members who, together with in-house IT professionals at IT using organizations, employ more than 2.5 million people. In 2011, our European partners will have revenue of more than €109BN.
Together with our partners – small and large firms, academics and policy-makers – we work hard to promote policy and regulatory frameworks that enable a thriving and competitive European knowledge economy - including interoperable technology standards, intellectual property rights, freedom of expression, greater funding for higher education and research, and more and better targeted funding for innovation clusters.
Visit the resources page to find out more about these programs and initiatives.
Learn more about Microsoft in Europe.