Comments on: Microsoft starts Latin American research institute

Federation is designed to capitalize on governments' recent interest in developing a knowledge-based economy.

[Commander_Spock]

"Microsoft starts Latin American research institute"!

As this article states in part; "Microsoft is establishing a mostly virtual institute in Latin America that will allow academic researchers to pool information on breakthroughs and find funding for projects in a variety of disciplines...". But, with the largest financing agency (the Inter-American Development Bank: http://www.iadb.org ) already in place over fifty years ago -- what on earth was preventing Latin American companies after all these years from finding the "funding" they need for projects so much so that Microsoft has to now come along to help them find funding for projects. Huh!

[extreme_hypoxia]

Finally some real research support ??

I honestly hope that this is for real and not just one more story. At our world renown institute with over 37 years of research (www.altitudeclinic.com), we have never had any access to one single cent in grants, because we are in an underdeveloped country (Bolivia). All our research was funded through our own pocket money with great sacrifice. Countless applications for grants led to nothing. Very very disappointing....

[Commander_Spock]

Just curious....

... but, were these "Countless applications for grants" that "led to nothing..." sent to the Inter-American Development Bank for funding?

[Commander_Spock]

Microsoft And ISO Standards!

Question: How will the Open Document Format Standards (ODF) which were quite recently recognised by International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) be addressed/embraced by the Microsoft Corporation in this research initiative. Also, what plans are there for future collaboration, coordination and cooperation with other IT players--IBM, SAP, ORACLE, INTEL...?