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newsmaker As chief technical officer of advanced strategies and policy at the world's largest software company, Craig Mundie is often in dialogue with governments around the world.
He reports to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and works with him to develop technical, business and policy strategies for the company on a global scale. Mundie's role includes coordinating and implementing aspects of strategies that span multiple Microsoft product groups and worldwide operations.
Mundie was here earlier this month to join other members of the Infocomm International Advisory Panel, a group made up of industry luminaries tasked to help develop Singapore's tech future.
In part 1 of this interview, he tells ZDNet Asia the extent to which Microsoft advises Asian governments as well as some of the long-term benefits that the company hopes to gain from the discussions.
Could you give a broad overview, as well as an update, on Microsoft's involvement with governments in the region?
We have been doing business in terms of our normal traditional product lines, in most of these countries for more than a decade. About six to seven years ago, I became personally drawn into China to work with the government to resolve issues that could have potentially blocked or slowed down the rate at which we could work together to deploy some of our technology.
For example, in China, there were a few concerns about how the government could be assured about the security of the systems that they were building on these technologies. And that led, for example, to the creation of the Government Security Program, and more recently, the Government Security Cooperation Program.
| This region has a disproportionate share of the world's poor people and less-privileged school systems. |
Today, 40-odd governments [globally], including a few in the region, now partner Microsoft in what is really not a commercial arrangement at all, but is essentially, a mutual cooperation agreement to try to improve overall network and computer security.
Another place where we've been engaged quite heavily in the last few years is around programs and education. They fall in two distinct categories. One, we have a program, for example, called Partners in Learning where we formalized a model of engaging governments to support the deployment of contemporary software for educational purposes in low-income schools, on a global basis. This is because this region has a disproportionate share of the world's poor people and less-privileged school systems. Today, I think there are 101 countries that have signed some agreement with Microsoft in order to facilitate low-cost access to our technology for use in education.
Another thing that we've recognized is as governments try to improve the situation in healthcare, education and the economic opportunities of their rural economies, that literacy, even for the adult population, is a critical factor. So we created a program that we called Unlimited Potential, partly with a philanthropic component to it from the company, and partly from partnership with partners and local community centers.
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