Posted by Fred HumphriesVice President of Government Affairs, Microsoft
The passage this week of the bilateral Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) between the U.S. and South Korea, Colombia and Panama puts America one step further on the path towards economic growth and propels the U.S. back into the international trade arena.
The agreements provide Americans with new market access opportunities for U.S. exports of goods and services while implementing new rules and disciplines in key areas such as intellectual property and regulatory due process – issues that are essential to innovation.
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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had the following statement in the wake of Congressional passage of the Colombia, South Korea and Panama Free Trade Agreements:
Posted by Jacqueline BeauchereDirector, Trustworthy Computing Communications, Microsoft
October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM) in the U.S. and around the world. This year's official launch is taking place in Ypsilanti, Michigan to coincide with the Michigan Cyber Summit 2011.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, other state officials, and I shared the stage just a few hours ago kicking off NCSAM 2011. I represented Microsoft, as well as the Board of Directors of the National Cyber Security Alliance, who are long-time sponsors of NCSAM and an important public-private partnership of which Microsoft is a founding member.
This year's NCSAM theme, “Our Shared Responsibility,” refers to the ongoing work each of us can do to help secure our own piece of cyberspace—because when it comes to making the Internet safer, no individual, corporation or government entity is solely responsible. Moreover, individual acts and omissions can have a combined impact.
Posted by Paul GarnettDirector, Technology Policy, Microsoft
Summertime often conjures up memories of days spent at the beach – waves crashing, sand castles, beach balls, surfing, swimming and ice cream. For the vast majority of Americans, that time is spent at a public beach – places with names like Crane’s, Ocean Shores, Sleeping Bear Dunes, Presque Isle and yes, even Marconi, named for the telecommunications pioneer.
Today, the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Communications and Technology holds a hearing on a legislative proposal that would require all newly allocated radio spectrum to be auctioned. That would include spectrum reallocated in the TV bands, including the white spaces spectrum, soon to be used by innovative new types of unlicensed devices based on dynamic spectrum access techniques.
Posted by Dan ReedCorporate Vice President, Technology Policy Strategy & Extreme Computing Group, Microsoft
Imagine a five-lane freeway at rush hour. Except on this freeway, four of the lanes are assigned to specific purposes and can only be used by a certain class of vehicles. Some of the assigned lanes contain a steady flow of traffic, but others remain clear most of the time. Meanwhile, the rest of us, traveling in thousands of cars, must use the single remaining lane for our commute.
Thankfully, this situation is not likely to happen on our roadways, but it does with radio spectrum. Our laptops, tablets, smartphones and other connected devices use spectrum to connect and transmit data. When the metaphorical spectrum traffic lanes get jammed, there is no way to avoid the congestion and switch to a clear lane. As a result, users feel the pain of frequent dropped calls and degraded quality of service.
With more than five billion cell phones and a growing “Internet of Things,” the demands we’re placing on spectrum have run headlong into the traditional ways that society regulates and allocates spectrum use, based on approaches that are nearly a century old.