The issue of climate change and energy scarcity is sharpening the minds of government and citizens alike to find solutions. Unfortunately, it is a race against time. Many look to technology but very few know what technologies are available and which ones can deliver impact. GeSI & Microsoft will be hosting a workshop at the EU Sustainable Energy Week 2013, to examine how Information and Communication...

Concern, a global humanitarian NGO, build its worldwide email platform on the cloud in order to reduce IT costs, and to insure efficient communication when providing disaster relief and support.

A network of hospitals and health care facilities in Germany used cloud computing to increase their access to files in a reliable and secure way while lowering IT costs.

In this case study you can read about how through cloud computing, SIVECO Romania’s solution helped the Ministry of Education lower costs and offer new and more reliable services to the public.

The Helene Elsass Center along with Microsoft Partner Commentor and Mitii Development A/S is building a programme called Mitii Kinect to help children diagnosed with cerebral palsy get the consistent help they need to develop their motor skills. Cerebral palsy is a neurological condition which impairs the motor skills and causes issues with physical movement.

In this case study, you can read about how IEG4 used cloud computing to help local UK governments deliver services faster and minimize costs.

The challenges that the public sector needs to face nowadays, including a combination of rising demands, continuing fiscal constraints, and a growing number of complex problems makes it difficult for them to solve with the same approaches and solutions. With this thought in mind, a broad circle of Danish government researchers developed a framework for a new Danish government policy. As outlined by the...

I am really glad every time I come across examples of technology applied to improve citizens’ lives. As recently announced, the forward looking  Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in the United Kingdom decided to run a pilot programme of using touchless technology in the operating theatre.

With economic headwinds buffeting Europe, governments are confronted by many difficult challenges. But in these unpredictable times, one thing is certain – that Europe has to embrace change, to do things in a better, more efficient and innovative way.

Microsoft has a long tradition of tackling tough challenges at a global scale. We have always focused on how our technology can enrich people’s lives, build businesses, and inspire and change the world.

Back in 2010, I had a vision to build an information system that would advance the pace of delivering quality healthcare and challenge the perception that public institutions are slow moving.

Removing barriers to boost cloud computing opportunities, letting our industries and SMEs grow and better compete inside and outside the European Union.

Three years ago, Microsoft adopted a broad environmental strategy. This strategy included commitments to reduce the impact of our operations and products, and to accelerate the use of information technology in addressing serious environmental issues. Our CEO sent out a company-wide email detailing our strategy, and highlighted some of the steps the company would take to be more environmentally responsible.

The on-going debate around the world’s economic recession may be an unpleasant topic to address, but in my job as Vice President for Public Sector in Europe, Middle East and Africa, I face this issue every day when meeting with customers and partners, and I believe we need to continue addressing it in order to solve it!

Microsoft Ireland Research has been working on electricity grid research that allows the exact energy consumption and emissions to be measured for any piece of computation performed in a data centre. This allows past or predicted emissions to be calculated for any computation performed in the cloud and opens the doorway to measuring and reducing the emissions produced by data centres around the world.

Electronic voting can affect local, regional, federal and European institutions (political elections), companies (union elections, surveys), individuals (surveys). The target audience is broad and the remote vote can give a response to these multiple cases. Securing the vote and guaranteeing the reliability of results are fundamental success factors while implementing evoting solutions. Finally, the...

IBOR (Intergraal Beheer Publieke Ruimte) is an innovative smart control and management system for public areas. By remotely maintaining and controlling public infrastructure such as street lights, IBOR helps to save energy, decrease maintenance costs and reduce CO2 emissions. Delivered through the cloud, the tool is expected to help reduce urban area energy use by 25 to 40 per cent.

The Citizen Interaction Solution (CIS) is a case management tool for customer services on a multi-channel basis including in person, web, phone, email/facsimile and SMS. The solution is centered on the relationship between the organisation and its clients, being the front-end for the customer service and customer support. CIS targets the specific market set of Public Sector eGovernment multi-channel citizen...

Atomblock’s solution is designed to take away all the hard work involved in publishing and selling content  - such as video games – online.  With Atomblock, companies can become e-retailers in less than a week, complete with links to social media.  It is ideal for retailers who want to create online stores, but do not want invest in the time, cost and expertise themselves.

With an uncertain economic forecast and a decrease in budgets, governments must reduce their spending while, at the same time, continue to deliver the quality services demanded by citizens. Government agencies now need to innovate and focus on creating efficient and affordable ways to make a real impact on the people they are there to serve. It’s about gaining efficiencies, meeting constituent...

The North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) Police is the largest police force in Germany with 50,000 police officers serving about 19 million people. The NRW Police uses technologies that benefit their constituents, and mobile technology is one of them.

If doctors could use natural user interfaces, like gestures, surgery could be quicker and safer.

Today, citizens in developed countries look for increased engagement and efficient services; they want more responsiveness and collaboration with Public Sector entities similar to the experience they have as consumers with industry and businesses. Governments need to adapt to these needs while working hard to build economic growth and prosperity in their countries. There is a need to look for approaches to...

It’s hard to believe that the well-known term ‘BRIC’ has now been in use for a decade, yet November 2011 marked the ten year anniversary since Goldman Sachs analyst Jim O'Neill established the phrase grouping Brazil, Russia, India and China together as ‘emerging markets to watch’. Aside from this anniversary reminding us all how fast a decade can pass, it’s remarkable to...

Efficiency and Opportunity: How Cloud and Technology Innovations are Powering Digital Public Services

2011 was a year dominated by discussions around the debt crisis, but from a technology point of view Europe saw its fair share of milestones and breakthroughs which can greatly contribute to the economy.  Among others, Vice-President Kroes, endorsed the adoption of cloud computing, a technology solution that gives everyone access to scalable computing power and resources, by promising to make Europe...

The challenges posed by Europe’s ageing population are pushing policymakers to act quickly before the health systems become unsustainable. This drive for improved efficiency and cost effectiveness in healthcare systems is increasingly encouraging stakeholders to embrace technology-based health solutions.

In this case study, you can read about London Borough of Newham’s leading example of utilizing cloud computing in public sector services and sharing technology with neighbouring boroughs which has resulted in improved service delivery and digital engagement with its citizens.  

Cloud computing is currently considered to have great potential in mitigating the financial and administrative difficulties of public administrations in Germany. It promises to both optimize the use of IT resources, and encourages a great variety of collaboration options.

This event has taken place. You can read our post-event summary here. Microsoft is hosting its 3rd annual eHealth event that examines how ICT can enable advanced patient-centric healthcare in Europe.

Not too long ago the geospatial industry enjoyed a fair amount of anonymity. Those who worked in the profession drew blank stares at social gatherings when the topic of discussion took the inevitable “what do you do?” turn. “Mapping” was an easy enough response, though the impression left was that of the AA or Michelin Road Atlases.

Doctors want to reduce their administrative work and patients want easy access to healthcare. Why not use mobile technology to help them?

More than ever now, the European Commission needs to focus on building and growing the high-performance computing (HPC) market. High-performance computing (HPC) uses supercomputers to solve advanced computation problems and is a key enabler of ground-breaking innovation that creates high wage jobs and allows Europe’s competitiveness to be maintained.

Success in the public sector today rides on not only being able to do more with less, but also being able to meet and exceed citizens’ expectations.

I truly believe that Europe has an immense potential to innovate. As stated by the EU Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will be the powerhouse of the Innovation Union, as they represent more than 99% of all businesses and employ more than 90 million people in Europe.

In this case study, you can read about how Barcelona, a city with a reputation of being a premiere location for business conferences, has developed a “new way of working” for its citizens and tourists through cloud computing. The city of Barcelona in Spain serves more than 1.6 million inhabitants and draws about 6.5 million visitors each year. Many citizens work remotely...

In this case study, you can read about how a Madrid based company has developed a cloud solution to enable its 17,000 residents help the city council maintain its 245,000 trees and keep the city green, with the help of an innovative SME – Tecnigral.

Information technology (IT) departments in organisations across sectors are facing difficulties in meeting the growing demand for IT services, due to tight budgets, rising energy costs, and limits on electric power availability. To answer the existing and new demands while remaining productive and competitive, it is important for organisations to embrace IT energy efficiency principles and practices.

EU Energy Commissioner Gunther Oettinger has said that “The cheapest energy is the one we don’t consume”. Private households also need to reduce their energy needs, and doing so makes economic sense too: lowering your room temperature by just three degrees can save 20 percent on heating costs. Even reducing temperature by a single degree can cut consumption by 6 percent.

In this case study, you can read about how Partners HealthCare has enabled increased accessibility of healthcare by making health data and communication between patients and providers possible virtually through cloud computing.

Over the last few decades microprocessors and software have been increasingly present in cars. Today, an average car might contain as many as 50 microprocessors, each with their own piece of software on them. Electric cars have even more electronics on them and it is likely that tomorrow’s car will have even more!

Microsoft and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) recently announced the latest awardees for the joint Microsoft-NSF research partnership in cloud computing. As part of this agreement with the NSF, Microsoft is making available access to Windows Azure , Microsoft's cloud computing platform. In addition, a support team of Microsoft researchers and developers is working with grant...

Early May, European Commissioner for Research and Innovation Máire Geoghegan-Quinn re-stated her desire to go further in cutting red tape and for the Commission to be innovative itself to release the full potential of EU funded research and innovation. She encouraged interested parties who had not yet given their views to respond to the consultation on the Common Strategic Framework for Research and...

How do you offer ICT services to mobile health workers?

Meander needed to convert its timesheet and leave request system from paper to digital. By using a cloud-based set of messaging and collaboration solutions, rather than running its own servers, it achieved cost savings of over 60%.

I underlined in several of my previous posts that cloud computing brings great benefits such as scalability and increased energy efficiency, but what about the next phase? As data centers grow in capacity and the rate of adoption increases, we need also to look to the future.

Following the recent economic downturn, public sector administration across Europe have had to make some tough financial decisions, whilst still ensuring high quality and cost effective services for the ever more digital citizens in Europe.

Health records are becoming increasingly used by citizens and health professionals to aggregate data that comes from many different sources. At the EuroRec Institute, we promote the use of high-quality health record systems by focusing on the users—their needs and how they interact with health information.

The global scale of climate and energy challenges is daunting. As world population approaches the 7 billion mark a growing majority people now live in cities. These billions of new urbanites need energy; energy for lights, for heating, for cooling; energy for transportation, housing and emergency services, energy for water systems and sanitation, and they want the same conveniences and luxuries that city...

Environmental futurists have said smart cars will increasingly be able to provide drivers GPS information that will help avoid and create traffic.

In this case study, you can read about how the shift to cloud computing has enabled up to 60% cost savings in Italy’s largest paediatric research and treatment centre, freeing up more resources to be invested in research.

In this case study, you can read about cloud computing has enabled the Government of Catalonia to expand its IT infrastructure to support 144,000 users in a cost-effective way.

Can cloud computing put patients in control of their own health information? How can innovations in cloud technology help improve general standards of care across Europe? What are the benefits for healthcare organisations that have adopted the cloud as part of their operational structure? What are the benefits for the users?

If ever proof was needed of the importance of cloud computing to local regional and national governments, then I heard a wealth of evidence during my visit to Rome today.

Last week, I was in Nairobi, Kenya for the United Nations Chief Executive Briefing, where Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General, launched the UN’s new energy neutral Nairobi office building. The building is the first of its kind for the UN in Africa and is a global showcase of sustainable design and technology.

Did your organization ever face the same problems? Stretched deadlines, missing the right IT infrastructure for launching a highly visible collaboration project, sharing documents with many internal and external stakeholders across various regions.

The Belgian Federal Public Service of Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment used a cloud-based storage and collaboration environment to ensure that its own staff as well as external users could jointly manage the European Presidency.

When I talk with government leaders and chief information officers across our region, I’m often asked questions that seek to learn more about the latest trend towards cloud computing. These questions range from legislative compliance such as data security and privacy, to data formats and interoperability, to budgeting policies and how Microsoft is responding to these specific public sector...

In this case study, you can read about how the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) collaborated with Microsoft in developing an interactive application to engage citizens in the exploration of Mars.

Efficiency and Opportunity: how the Cloud is powering Future Government. This year, the Government Solutions Forum in Rome brought together partners, customers and international public sector experts. During the 2 days of the event, participants discussed ways to deliver more effective citizen services, showcasing a wide range of ideas and solutions.

This week we had the pleasure of announcing strategic industry alliances in the United States with Dell and Royal Philips Electronics (Philips). Dell and Microsoft will collaborate to deliver a business intelligence solution to meet the needs of community hospitals. Philips and Microsoft will collaborate to streamline the workflow of radiologists as they seek to build and understand the complete...

Cloud computing will dramatically lower the barriers many researchers face accessing and generating life science data. This shift is not unlike the one that occurred in the 1970s when the first personal computers were sold.

I wanted to share with you an interesting article that my colleague Rob Bernard, Chief Environmental Strategist for Microsoft, recently wrote. His piece offers up some insightful thoughts on a recent study ran to better understand the potential that cloud computing may have to abate carbon emissions and reduce energy consumption for small to large companies.

In this case study, you can read about how HCL Technologies is enabling enterprises to easily monitor its carbon footprint which is helping businesses and governments’ better account and manage carbon emissions.

In this case study, you can read about a Catalonian centre which is helping Spanish businesses become more productive through collaboration with Microsoft in providing Microsoft Office 365, an enterprise-class, cloud-based solution.

The press coverage has been unanimous that the COP 16 in Cancun Mexico exceeded expectations in delivering some tangible results in the effort to combat climate change. As I said in my earlier blog, there was optimism for some sort of success and it is now apparent this optimism was not misplaced. One can only aspire for greater things next year in Durban, South Africa where the COP 17 will be held.

In this case study, you can read about how a Danish transport company has achieved 76% cost savings on IT investments and can now provide a much more reliable information service to its customers, thanks to cloud computing.

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.

On November 8-11, I took part in the 2010 Care Innovation summit on ‘Going Green’, held this year in Vienna. Participants from across the ICT sector attended the two-day event to better understand how our sector should be part of the answer to reduce greenhouse gases and not part of the problem.

Momentum is building around cloud scenarios applied to health and wellbeing. To offer clearer understanding of the possibilities offered by the cloud and to gain insight into the experiences of early adopters, we are hosting the Health Users Group European Summit in Brussels. It will take place on Monday and Tuesday, 29 and 30 November, and will bring together over 60 health customers and partners from 19...

The Europe 2020 strategy is driving massive change across European life. The Barroso Commission is not only striving for a stronger economy and more competitive Europeans but it  demands that we act smart in the process.

We’ve been underlining this idea many times before, the ICT industry has the power to contribute to the worldwide carbon reductions not only within the ICT sector itself, but also to help other sectors and industries such as production, transport, construction and logistics become more sustainable.

As the President of Microsoft International I had the honour of hosting the Government Leadership Forum (GLF) in London.

For some, the talk of cloud computing produces more haze than light, and there is no doubt: we all need to see the deeper analysis of the economics of the cloud in order to make decisions about information technology strategies.  I work with public administrations across Europe, and see that the interest level in cloud computing is high, but there is also widespread desire for better understanding of...

I just saw Rob Bernard our Chief Environment Strategist in an interview on CNN on how we and the ICT industry are trying to tackle the increasing energy consumption of data centers.

Distributed computing has become very common in large scientific communities because of the needs of exchanging scientific data and sharing computing resources which would otherwise not be affordable by a single research institute. Cloud computing brings a number of advantages (cost being one) that now makes it a platform of choice for many research activities.

This Microsoft-hosted workshop will examine how the use of new technologies, especially cloud computing can ease the path toward e-Health. The workshop will gather together important leaders in the European Medical Community as well as Health organizations involved in innovative telemedicine projects. It is being held on November 11/12 in the Microsoft Executive Briefing Centre in Brussels.

It’s a clear message my colleagues gave me at a recent event: the ICT industry and cloud computing are key components in helping to reduce the carbon footprint in Europe.  But of course ICT people would say that, I hear you cry!

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer toured Europe this week. As a snapshot, here is what he said during one of his visits while in Germany.

In this case study, you can read about LoveCleanStreets, a cloud-based application that helps London authorities manage street care with the help of crowdsourcing – supported by an innovative SME bbits.

In this case study, you can read about an Italian company providing flexible, cost-effective communication and collaboration solutions to businesses, especially timely during tough economic times.

The new EU Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science is starting her term with a strong statement; at a time when many European governments struggle with debt, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn announced the biggest package ever for European research: €6.4 billion!

This is another really nice piece on the power of cloud computing. My colleague Mark Drapeau, Director of Social Engagement talks about the massive energy boost this ‘pay as you go’ approach to IT offers anyone moving to the cloud. And he literally means anyone: from the one-man start-up, through to small and medium size businesses, universities and schools, as well as public administration....

Recently I was invited to speak about new business models of eHealth at a conference in Denmark. It was surprising that this eHealth conference, The New Age of Health IT, was in fact organized by the International Bar Association!

HealthVault – the Microsoft Personal Health Record platform – is now in Europe! While, in several posts on EMEA Health blog, I was discussing the potential benefits of such a platform in Europe, a first launch happened this June in the UK.

Today, we try to control just about every aspect of our lives. Technology, software, mobile devices and a culture of individual empowerment means we have greater choice over how, when and where we work and live.

Personalised healthcare stands at the confluence of the most powerful technologies in the history of the life sciences.  

In this case study, you can read about how Chronorace, a logistics company, handled huge demands for accessing multimedia on its Brussels Half-marathon website after the event with Windows Azure, the Microsoft cloud platform.

The Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (BSC) is taking part in a pioneering EU Framework Programme 7 project on cloud computing , Venus-C - a project that aims to foster the development of a cloud computing platform based on virtualisation technologies not for individuals, but for industry and the scientific community.

The Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) and Microsoft joined forces in 2008 to create the BSC-Microsoft Research Centre.

In this case study, you can read about a small Danish business, able to adopt enterprise-class messaging and collaboration software and grow with the help of cloud computing.

On June 20th 2012, in the presence of Prime Minister of Denmark Helle Thorning-Schmidt, sustainability legend Gro Harlem Brundtland, IPCC Chair Rajendra K. Pachauri, EU Commissioner for Climate Action Connie Hedegaard and 150 VIP guests at Rio+20, Eye on Earth has been chosen for the prestigious SUSTAINIA 100 list of solutions. For more information, you can visit:...

A converted chapel in Barcelona is the home for a supercomputing centre that is helping to revolutionise the way we will use cloud computing.

Superbowl Sunday is big business in the US as people all over the nation tune in to watch the American football match of the year. Pizza deliveries soar on what is one of the highest days of food consumption in the US. This year Domino’s Pizza found a new way to cope with the sudden burst of demand on its computing resources: using “the cloud” for extra capacity.

There is one game-changer that can turn the promise of personalised healthcare into a reality. It is healthcare IT, says Alan Davies from GE Healthcare.

In this case study, you can read about how cloud computing helps Dutch orthopaedic centre help 30% more patients and scale up without worrying about continuously expanding or managing escalating IT expenses. Annatommie is an orthopaedic diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation centre in the Netherlands. With ambitious plans to open 14 offices, annatommie needed to automate manual processes to...

The cloud is one of the most popular terms in IT today but perhaps also one of the least well defined. FUTURES guides you through the how and the why.

In this case study, you can read about how the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) worked with Active Web Solutions (AWS) to develop a cost-efficient, cloud-based application to help them save more lives at sea. High numbers of deaths at sea is a major concern for anyone in the fishing industry, with an estimated 24,000 crew members drowning worldwide each year. To try and prevent these...

Computer science can play a major role in fuelling scientific breakthroughs in other fields, but only if it can meet its own grand challenges, said Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer of Microsoft at a symposium in Brussels debating how best to use EU-funded research programmes to solve grand challenges.

In this case study, you can read about the partnership between the European Environment Agency (EEA) and Microsoft to develop the “Eye on Earth” application on cloud to give Europeans data on water and air quality. An agency of the European Union, the European Environment Agency (EEA) provides independent and reliable information on the environment for policy makers and the general...

In this case study, you can read about how Aviva, a global organisation who unites its operations in 28 countries with cloud computing. Aviva is a global life and general insurance services company built around the needs of its customers. It has offices in 28 countries with 54,000 employees serving 50 million customers, and first started operating more than 300 years ago.

The BBC’s Digital Giants series features a video from Steve Ballmer, where he discusses the next big things online and how they will change our lives. Steve talked about three areas: the natural user interface, convergence and Cloud Computing.

Developers are the lifeblood of Microsoft. I know, I know, it’s a well-worn Microsoft mantra but believe me, it’s never been more true. Today, the hunger for new technologies is only growing.

  In this case study, you can read about how cloud computing has enabled a Dutch hospital to switch to a cost-effective email solution to comply with changes in regulation in a quick and seamless manner.

In this case study, you can read about the Royal Mail Group has improved their efficiency by giving its employees reliable & simple ways to access information through the adoption of Microsoft’s cloud solution. In the United Kingdom the Royal Mail Group has expanded their IT services agreement with CSC to include Microsoft’s Business Productivity Suite from Microsoft Online...

Our favorite Geek in Disguise, Steve Clayton from the UK, provides on his blog a short and useful summary of Steve Ballmer’s speech yesterday in which the Microsoft CEO described how “we’re all in” cloud computing.

The eHealth landscape offers both opportunities and barriers to policy makers in the EU 27 member states which are not just about technical issues of interoperability and data security and confidentiality.

In Europe and elsewhere, computing is experiencing a powerful transformation. Driven by continuous innovations in software, hardware and the Internet, traditional models of computing are gradually shifting.   

Last week I published a video interview I conducted with Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s Chief Research and Strategy Officer, where he explains his vision of cloud computing.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s Chief Research and Strategy Officer, when he was last in Brussels.

As you may have read before on this site, we opened one of the largest data centres in Europe just last year in Dublin. Large-scale facilities such as this can play a big role in the development of cloud computing, providing companies with better and cheaper computing facilities. Great news to resource-strapped companies in particular.

Microsoft, in partnership with European Voice and its sister publications in Washington DC, Roll Call and Congressional Quarterly, is hosting a high-level transatlantic dialogue on how technology can enable innovation and transformation in the field of health.

Ray Ozzie introduced the term Software plus Services about 3 years ago and since then it’s where I have focused all of my time at Microsoft.

Views and commentaries from Europe’s ICT & eHealth thought leaders. Filmed during the Friends of Europe Summit in Brussels - December 2009.

Join our partner – EEA – and  help build a community showing how we can IMPACT and CONTRIBUTE to addressing Climate Change!!

With Eye On Earth providing near to real-time information on Water and Air quality, encouraging two-way collaboration with citizens, Environmental Atlas of Europe now extends our digital platform to educate on climate change. (See my previous post )

The European Environment Agency and Microsoft launched their latest project this month - the Environmental Atlas of Europe (Atlas) at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen.

We were very proud to announce the grand opening of our Dublin data centre last month. This state of the art facility helps to improve cloud computing capacity and network infrastructure throughout Europe to meet the demand generated from Microsoft’s online, live and cloud services (like Bing, Windows Live and the Azure Services Platform).

As part of its drive to foster innovation and the knowledge economy in Europe, the Commission has designated 2009 as the Year of Creativity & Innovation.

On 16 June 2009, the King of Belgium, Albert II, visited one of Belgium’s innovation hotspots, the Digital Innovation Valley in Mons. During the visit the King, Walloon Minister for Economy Jean-Claude Marcourt and Mons mayor Elio Di Rupo stopped by the Microsoft Innovation Centre in Mons.

Microsoft’s first European “mega data centre”, which opened recently on the western outskirts of Dublin, uses 50 per cent less energy than a traditional data centre built some three years ago.

Earlier this week Microsoft joined with the European Environment Agency to launch a compelling example of how Microsoft’s cloud computing technology can be a real ‘change maker’ in the fight against climate change.

Through Eye on Earth, a repository for geographical environmental information created by the European Environment Agency (EEA) and Microsoft, Europeans can see and rate the air quality with an online application called AirWatch.

Prof. Jacqueline McGlade at EEA, Rob Bernard, Chief Environmental Strategist at Microsoft Corp and Ludo de Bock, Senior Director EU and NATO, Microsoft Corp. 

On June 20th 2012, in the presence of Prime Minister of Denmark Helle Thorning-Schmidt, sustainability legend Gro Harlem Brundtland, IPCC Chair Rajendra K. Pachauri, EU Commissioner for Climate Action Connie Hedegaard and 150 VIP guests at Rio+20, Eye on Earth has been chosen for the prestigious SUSTAINIA 100 list of solutions. For more information, you can visit:...

While living in a world of easily available mass market technology, it always strikes me how little we do with it in an interactive way to create broad awareness and collaboration on topics that will determine ours and the next generations future living conditions. 

Atlas, an online portal, uses the intuitive interface of Bing Maps to allow people to view stories about the impact of climate change across Europe.

  Although most people will agree that eHealth is important, it remains a complex landscape which few grasp clearly. 

What is Microsoft's vision for the future? Take a look.

We at Microsoft are delighted to see the opening of the first "mega data center" here in Europe. The Dublin Data Center is part of Microsoft’s long-term commitment in the region, and is a major step in realising Microsoft’s Software plus Services strategy.

This week I have been lucky to be one of a handful of business executives speaking at the European Union’s Green Week conference in Brussels. 

Asklepios Hospital: Using Microsoft and Intel technology in modern healthcare

The internet is developing at a tremendous pace as more businesses and peopleworldwide gain access to an ever greater range of online services including online office functionality, video and music downloads and more. 

In February 2008, Microsoft launched the Microsoft Embedded Systems Development Centre (MESDC) in Aachen, Germany. The MESDC was created to foster product development in Europe by addressing the needs of industry partners and customers. Products developed at the MESDC are intended to tackle challenges faced by European customers, but also demonstrate applicability throughout the globe. Bill Dunlap,...

European Environment Agency and Microsoft Eye on Earth Observatory bring Europaan beach quality into sharp focus