REDMOND , W ash. — Sept . 10 , 201 3 — Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday announced the global availability of Office 365 for Nonprofits for qualifying nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) through its software donation program. The donation is available immediately in 41 countries around the world and for up to 90 countries by July 2014.

“Today we are donating to nonprofits and NGOs access to Microsoft’s best-in-class cloud-based productivity and collaboration tools, enabling them to spend fewer resources and time on IT and focus on their missions addressing global issues, such as disease eradication, education and literacy, and environmental sustainability,” said Jean-Philippe Courtois, president, Microsoft International. “Nonprofits operate in the same way as any other organization or business; however, many lack the resources to implement the latest technology. The donation of Office 365 allows them to be more effective and efficient in the work they do.”

In a study by Microsoft’s software donation partner TechSoup Global, nonprofits reported that the top four advantages of cloud computing are easier IT administration (79 percent), cost savings (62 percent), improved collaboration (61 percent) and data security (54 percent).

“In many of the countries served by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), connectivity can be unreliable and equipment disproportionately expensive. Our Digital Divide Initiative aims to build professional capacity across our global network and help Red Cross Red Crescent National Societies that work in challenging environments to introduce technologies, such as cloud-based email servers, that are suited to their needs,” said Edward Happ, global chief information officer, IFRC. “Building on this, we’ve made available Office 365 as our cloud-based solution. The technology just works; it helps people do what they need to do. This means that the time and energy of the National Society is devoted to helping the vulnerable, not to managing its IT systems. It makes a real difference to humanitarian delivery at minimum cost.”

Office 365 for Nonprofits provides nonprofits and NGOs with access to Microsoft’s always up-to-date Office cloud service, tailored to the needs of nonprofits through the following benefits:

• Ability to access information from virtually anywhere. Office 365 for Nonprofits increases an organization’s ability to work from virtually anywhere with access to documents and files from Office applications optimized for use across PCs, smartphones and tablets.

• Easy collaboration. Nonprofits are able to work together easily across an organization by using familiar Office applications with email, shared calendar, document sharing and videoconferencing.

• Easy IT implementation. Office 365 for Nonprofits includes access to easy-to-use administrative controls and the ability to install Office without uninstalling previous versions.

• Reliability and up-to-date technology. Office 365 for Nonprofits allows organizations to spend less time on IT maintenance, while providing access to always up-to-date technology that is simple and easy to use. And Office 365 for Nonprofits is backed by industry-leading security features and a 99.9 percent financially backed uptime guarantee.

“Microsoft has a long-standing history of philanthropy, providing nonprofits with software donations and cash grants for the past 30 years,” said Lori Harnick, general manager, Citizenship and Public Affairs, Microsoft. “Office 365 for Nonprofits is a new, critical investment Microsoft is making in the global nonprofit community so nonprofits can streamline their IT and focus on doing more good.”

Microsoft’s donation of Office 365 for Nonprofits is part of the company’s 30-year history of community support. In fiscal year 2013 alone, Microsoft donated $795 million (fair market value) in cash, software and services to 70,286 nonprofits in more than 115 countries around the world.

Nonprofits and NGOs interested in implementing Microsoft Office 365 can check eligibility and order donations at http://www.microsoft.com/office365nonprofits. Migration information and resources can be found at http://fasttrack.office.com.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

The PostgreSQL Global Development Group announces the release of PostgreSQL 9.3, the latest version of the world's leading open source relational database system. This release expands PostgreSQL's reliability, availability, and ability to integrate with other databases. Users are already finding that they can build applications using version 9.3 which would not have been possible before.

"PostgreSQL 9.3 provides features that as an app developer I can use immediately: better JSON functionality, regular expression indexing, and easily federating databases with the Postgres foreign data wrapper. I have no idea how I completed projects without 9.3," said Jonathan S. Katz, CTO of VenueBook.

Writable External Data

Version 9.3 makes PostgreSQL's Foreign Data Wrappers writable, enabling two-way data interchange between systems. Today's complex IT environments involve multiple databases and semi-structured data sources, and PostgreSQL helps you integrate them into a coherent stack. The project has also released postgres_fdw, a higher-performance, read/write PostgreSQL-to-PostgreSQL federation driver.

"Writable foreign data wrappers enable us to plug in and seamlessly test various backend alternatives, allowing us to address different needs quickly and prototype intelligently," explained Lee Holloway, Co-founder and Lead Engineer at CloudFlare. "It is exciting to conceive and toss up new data stores (including our in-house experimental ones written in Go) and then watch them read, write, and even transact each other."

Enhanced Reliability and Availability

"Postgres has been my favorite choice for its well known stability, robustness, strong coherency, safety, ACID, and SQL conformance," said Pascal Bouchareine, director of research and development at Gandi.net. "I'm especially excited to hear more about the fast failover coming in 9.3."

This new release includes features to further improve and extend PostgreSQL's well-known reliability and availability:

• Data Page Checksums: help administrators quickly detect failing disks and bad hardware that corrupts data
• Fast Failover: enables sub-second switchoffs from master to replica, supporting "carrier-grade" availability
• Streaming-Only Remastering: easier, faster reconfiguration of cascading replicas after failover

Developer-friendly Features

As with every annual release, PostgreSQL 9.3 includes many features to make working with PostgreSQL easier, more flexible and more fun for application developers, administrators and architects. These features include:

• Additional JSON constructor and extractor methods
• Automatically updatable VIEWs
• Parallel pg_dump to speed backups of large databases
• LATERAL JOINs

Further, PostgreSQL 9.3's User-Defined Background Workers allow developers to write task managers, request handlers, parallel processors, queuing tools and other helper applications to enable PostgreSQL as a workload coordinator. One example of this already released is Mongres, a background worker which accepts MongoDB queries, interprets them and passes them on to PostgreSQL.

Links

• Downloads
• Press Kit
• Release Notes
• What's New in 9.3

REDMOND, Wash. — Sept. 8, 2013 — Nearing its one-year anniversary, Microsoft Corp.’s all-in-one music service, Xbox Music, continues making strides to deliver all the music people want, wherever they want it played. Today, Microsoft announced its plans to bring Xbox Music to iOS and Android devices, as well as free streaming on Xbox Music via the Web.[1]

Accessing music across all the different devices people interact with has become complicated. People today use PCs, laptops, tablets, phones and TVs to access different music services that don’t connect with one another. Xbox Music is designed to solve this common problem by combining the best of all music offerings with free streaming on the Web and on Windows 8 PCs and tablets, Internet radio, subscription (called Xbox Music Pass), and download-to-own options.[2] With today’s news, access to Xbox Music grows to include iOS and Android devices, as well as a free Web-based interface on computers.

“Xbox Music now, more than ever, powers music experiences between Windows 8, Xbox, Windows Phone, and now iOS, Android and the Web,” said Jerry Johnson, general manager of Xbox Music. “We’re also excited to connect artists with their fans on the most anticipated consumer product of the year when Xbox One launches Nov. 22.”

Expanding the Xbox Music f amily of d evices

Starting today, your Xbox Music Pass brings the catalog of music to iOS and Android devices. Get unlimited access to the songs and artists you want at any time with playback across your tablet, PC, phone and Xbox console for $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year. Add a song to your collection on your Xbox, and you’ll also have that song on your iOS, Android or Windows 8 device on the go or at the office. Xbox Music Pass also unlocks unlimited access to tens of thousands of music videos on your Xbox 360.

With the addition of free streaming on the Web, enjoy on-demand access to 30 million songs globally for free on the Xbox Music Web player at http://music.xbox.com or through the Xbox Music app on all Windows 8 tablets and PCs. Discovering and enjoying free music is as easy as typing an artist or song name and hitting “play.” Songs are instantly available to stream at no cost and for you to create an unlimited amount of playlists.[1]

Continued i nnovation

Xbox Music will continue to grow and evolve over the coming months. Microsoft will add Radio to the free Web player, a quick and dynamic way to personalize your collection, discover new favorites, and create ultimate playlists by launching instant mixes based on your favorite artists. With unlimited skips and a view of the full recommended music stream, Radio puts you in control of your Internet radio experience.[1]

Xbox Music will grow on Windows 8 when it adds the anticipated new Web Playlist tool this fall. The tool scans all the artists and music available on a given Web page and creates a custom playlist of all that music. Think about the Web page of your favorite radio station, or an upcoming music festival, and all the bands and songs included on that Web page. Web Playlist identifies all that music and creates an instant, custom playlist inside Xbox Music with the simple touch of a button. Web Playlist along with Windows 8.1 will be released Oct. 17.

In the coming months, additional updates for iOS and Android platforms will become available, including an offline mode that lets you save your music to your device for playback without an Internet or data connection.

About Xbox

Xbox is Microsoft’s premier entertainment brand for the TV, phone, PC and tablet. In living rooms or on the go, Xbox is home to the best and broadest games, as well as one of the world’s largest libraries of movies, TV, music and sports. Your favorite games, TV and entertainment come to life in new ways through the power of Kinect, Xbox SmartGlass and Xbox Live, the world’s premier social entertainment network. More information about Xbox can be found online at http://www.xbox.com.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

[1] Free streaming available only on the Web and devices running Windows 8 or later. Limited hours of free streaming after six months; unlimited with paid subscription. Coming later this fall: artist-based Radio on Android, iOS and the Web.

[2] Xbox Music Pass is streaming only on Xbox consoles, Android, iOS and the Web. Applicable taxes extra. On Xbox consoles, Xbox Music requires an Xbox Music Pass and an Xbox Live Gold membership (both sold separately). Download music on up to four devices. Some Xbox Music content may not be available via Xbox Music Pass, and may vary over time and by region. Coming later this fall: Xbox music download-to-own on Android and iOS, and playlists and song sync on Windows Phone 8. See http://www.xbox.com/music.

For details, please visit http://news.xb o x.com .

For assets, please visit http://news.xbox.com/media.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.