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Our software is a powerful tool in democratizing information and opening the door to
opportunity. While we measure financial performance and economic impact, while we count in
terrabytes and nanoseconds, we also weigh our efforts in the way our products help people
live and learn.Knowledge is the
imperative when it comes to finding a good job and securing a future for yourself and your
family. For Bridget McLaurin, our investment in communities has made all the difference.
By participating in the Community Preservation and Development Corporation program she
became the first graduate of their computer lab, sponsored by Microsoft. By learning our
applications Bridget now has a job with a future. Since our investment in the CPDC center,
many more have completed the program and moved into the job market with the computer
skills businesses seek.
We are also committed to helping all
schools develop a learning community where students, teachers, and parents can learn
throughout their lives. By working with teaching colleges, state departments of education,
and through the distribution of professional development materials, we provide educators
with the tools and resources they need to successfully integrate
technology into the classroom. Last year Microsoft and our education partners touched
800,000 teachers through various programs and materials. In 1999, we hope to reach more
than one million teachers worldwide.
We provide teachers with training
materials, lesson plans, wizards, and templates that help streamline routine tasks and
help educators incorporate the Office productivity suite into their daily curriculum,
helping them use technology in a way that will complement their own teaching styles and
bring to schools the same rich, stable, and scalable systems on which businesses now rely.
Everyday, we see the impact in the most
important place of all: the eyes of children. In Goshen, Kentucky, Mendy Brown’s
sixth grade science class used Microsoft Encarta to help construct a virtual field trip of
the St. Louis Zoo. Encarta enabled her students to learn in a way that best suited their
own skills and interests. And, in addition to learning about animals and habitats, they
discovered a simple truth: our planet is full of people who care deeply about their work
and the world around them. The students connected with their subject in a way no textbook
can match: trading e-mail with zoologists from all over the world, the students got
answers in a way that transformed the sometimes abstract nature of classroom learning into
something very personal and very real.
We are bringing the world into the
classroom and helping administrators run efficient educational organizations. Whether
students are using Encarta to explore the world around them, accessing the World Wide Web,
or just checking out a book from the school library, Microsoft and the companies we team
with are helping to bring technology into a new world of learning. And this is typical of
the way in which our technology opens the doors to learning that is more profound, more
personal.
What must be obvious by now is that, as a
company and as individuals, we’re very passionate about what we do. The implications
of our technology multiply and the promise grows. You experience that passion in the
details making our software and systems recognize you as an individual with specific
preferences and your own way of doing things.
The technology that helps Mrs.
Brown’s class with a virtual field trip is basically the same technology businesses
use for electronic commerce and you use when you look for information, entertainment,
goods and services at home. By interacting with Sidewalk, Expedia, CarPoint, HomeAdvisor
or the Internet Gaming Zone. By getting news and opinion from MSNBC and Slate®
online magazine. By monitoring your portfolio with Microsoft Investor. Our success on the
Internet demands that we not only engineer our software to be the best, but that we
develop content and functionality that is compelling to consumers, to students and
educators, and to businesses, so that the Internet really helps everyone in learning,
work, and leisure.
Making it possible for people to find new
opportunities. Making a connected learning community and a connected world. Making it safe
and easy to pay your light bill over the Internet. Making technology a tool for the
discovery of new ideas.
When it’s all said and done, maybe
this is where it really starts.
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