Microsoft has increased the volume of help it extends to its business partners and customers in China. The total donations have climbed up to 6.6 million USD encompassed cash donations from its US and China teams.
According to Channel Asia, Microsoft extended the second wave of cash donations to its customers in China. The company has also committed to donating a total of 5.7 million worth of products, services, and cloud solutions to Chinese hospitals and medical workers.
The vice president and CEO of the Greater China Region at Microsoft Alain Crozier said that the company is willing to stand with China to fight against a global health threat. He also claimed that other than cash donations, Microsoft and its teams in Beijing and Seattle would work together to improve its technology and platforms to the regions affected by the health threat in China.
Crozier added that the company is set at helping all of its employees, customers, and business partners and that it would extend the to Wuhan hospitals. The help would include support communication and collaboration. The effort would be participated by Windows Server Datacenter and SQL Server Enterprise. The companies were said to enhance the information technology infrastructure of the emergency specialty hospital in Zhengzhou.
It was also announced that Microsoft would integrate its Surface devices with Office 365 and Power BI. The covered establishments for the upgrades are Zhengzhou, Guangxi, Chongquing, and Wuhan. The Microsoft vendors would also provide technology demonstrations to the local government and official health commissions.
On top of this, Microsoft would also deploy 300 psychological counselors to aid the Chinese government via OneDrive, SharePoint, and Skype for Business. The service would be available 24 hours a day as a support hotline.
Chinese customers were also granted free access to Azure resources for six months with a complimentary Office 365 E1 International edition feature. The said freebie would include free access to Microsoft Teams as well.
Microsoft vendors would also be collaborating with 21 Vianet to present free three-month access to Azure VDI services hosted in China to support the work-from-home current industry of the country. The platform-as-a-service (PaaS) was created to promote secure and compliant remote access to a managerial virtual desktop environment to which users could access through their mobile phones.
In other news, Forbes reported that Microsoft would also be teaming up with Samsung through X-box to develop cloud-based gaming features. The partnership was for the purpose of instituting Project xCloud that is currently on its test phase. The report claimed that more details would be unveiled about the project later this year.
It was then discussed that Microsoft has been flourishing as a sought-after business due to its partnerships. It was explained that the streaming has indicated a slow burn in the gaming industry since the latter is more focused on the traditional console. However, an expert claimed that there would be wider adoption of Microsoft in the near future.
