Let's hope that Microsoft decides to kick in a little more than just $1M than they have committed to. MS donated over $3.5M to the tsunami victims, but they won't donate at least that much to their own country's disaster relief? Ridiculous.

how about you compare the extent of destruction? the tsunami affected over 100,000 people and that's just the number dead. millions were rendered homeless. it affected over 5 countries.

i wish microsoft would contribute more, but please, don't call this ridiculous.

How much everyone wants to bet that while "tbb" talks trash about MS's donation, he hasn't donate one red cent towards Katrina victums.

You know, I don't care what anyone says about MS contributing. MS is "The evil software empire". Those "evil" guys there contribute millions everyday and most people don't even notice. They match employee donations to charities, they give software away, they give time. Hundreds of programmers around the world donate their time and effort and Microsoft backs them 100%. I think the world need a heck of a lot more of these types of "Evil" guys.

I personally belong to a non profit org that develops software for other non profit orgs. We have experienced .net coders that work on these project with people new to .net to teach them the framework, they learn for free by working on projects with experienced programmers that the other non profit orgs could not afford to do. Microsoft donates, servers, software, tools, and lawyers just to make sure our ducks are all in a row. We charge nothing for development and major non profit foundations all over the world benefit which in turn people all over the world benefit from those other non profit orgs. So when someone has the gall to say something like well Microsoft only donated a million dollars. They need to look into some of the things Microsoft does on a daily basis and what they enable people to do even though most people don't even know they have been helped by Microsoft. That million wouldn't include employee donatations which Microsoft matches Microsoft's help and donation in the future clean up. The Microsoft business reps out in the field who have already stepped up to companies impacted by this with only one question "How can we help?"

And no I do not work for Microsoft I just have my eyes open enough to see some of the stuff Microsoft does do to benifit the world well beyond software. Anyone who thinks Microsoft doesn't help out needs to chew on this site for a while. http://www.gatesfoundation.org/

Thank you Jeff Parker! - Well said - and oh so true! Thousands of dollars pour out to various charities and organizations by MS Corp and it's employees on a daily basis, and that's when there are NO disasters going on.
MS doesn't brag, they donate! Go Microsoft!

First let me start by saying the only conection with microsoft is that of my windows based program that 90% of us all use on a daily basis. My comment is simple and quick to the point. Nearly every company and household in New Orleans supported and "bought" into the Microsoft program. My question is ...Will Microsoft "buy" into stopping, what could be more than the public and current goverment is prepared to handle. If this state of emergency is not delt with quickly "Katrina" will not be considered a hurricane but, the storm that started it all. Please help our people.

I am grateful for the help Microsoft is sending. Can they help with one more thing? Yesterday there was a story on the MSN news page about a little boy and his dog Snowball. A police officer would not let him take the dog on the bus and he cried until he vomited. Can anyone help re-unite them if they were separated?

Thank you.

Microsoft needs to step up to the plate here. $1 million is not enough for a company this large. After all they owe America alot...
How much profit does Microsoft make a year ?

Thats better........

Microsoft needs to step up to the plate here. $1 million is not enough for a company this large. After all they owe America alot...
How much profit does Microsoft make a year ?

Thats better........

I'm European and looks this disaster from outside..

The think I can say is that it's not Microsoft that didn't take care about the repeated experts warnings about this disaster...

Why so big "previsible" disaster can happened without somethink is done to avoid it???

The reason: Somethink binded with the economical return of investment.

But know, the country will pay double or triple , but insurance will pay too, everithing is to recreate... that will give lot of work for lot of people... Not so bad for an economical point of view. Maybe this "scenario" was decided by the White House Experts?

"Victims" will needs lot of courage.

A point of view from an European man.

For perspective, Walmart donated $15M.

I too think Microsoft should donate more. Here is a company that (a) makes alot of its profits in the US, (b) has an extremely high profit margin (far exceeding Walmart) on billions of dollars of revenue

I'm not expecting large companies like Ford or GM to throw in such amounts, they obviously have money problems. But Microsoft? Don't they have BILLIONS in profit on a per-quarter basis? ($3.7B for quarter ending June 2005) Is it really so much to ask? $10M would be more appropriate.

Not that $10M will make a huge difference in terms of an event that will cost tens of billions of dollars but at least show some compassion torwards your fellow countrymen.

Had to comment about other poster (Jeff Parker) and his link to www.gatesfoundation.com, as if this is some sort of trump card and we should all just shut up now. I have 2 points to make here:

a) Gates foundation gave $1.5M to hurricane relief. Fine. They also gave $1M to bridging the digital divide in Bangladesh.
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Libraries/InternationalLibraryInitiatives/Announcements/Announce-050816.htm

Not that I am saying they shouldn't give money to the divide in Bangladesh, as some argumentitative type will try to claim but just that it makes the $1.5M seem a little weak when compared. Pessimists will see that $1M aid to Bangladesh not really being $1M since it probably will be spent on MSFT products but I digress, outside the scope of this current blog topic. The foundation has done very good things with world health issues and vaccines I readily admit.

b) Gates Foundation was created by money donated by Bill & Melinda Gates (well mostly Bill but pretty sure wife would be upset if wasn't named after her too ;) This is NOT Microsoft. It is the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation. Great. I haven't heard from Steve, Paul the and the other 4-5 billionaires in the company etc. If you like you can reduce the $10M I expected by $1.5M to $7.5M since Bills share is covered by his foundation.

That Microsoft donates 1 Million dollar is compared to me to give less than 1 cent. I would be ashamed to give only one cent. But a million is better than one cent. So Microsoft thank you for excusing people who doesn't donate any money.

Hey tbb, would you donate more than $1M to a country who sued you?

hey Bill the III....

I'm sure it is a tough task, to be one of the richest person in the world, but don't you feel a little bit obligated to contribute more than only "1 million" ?? ....Billy, you basically made your money out of Americans, and u are still doing it, every day, every second........get real.....again, u are so rich that even when you are loosing on a bad day at the stock market millions of millions, u could spend a little bit more, don't you agree??

How about at least donating computers to the shelters, Churches, etc. where those who have no home, job, family can use to get their lives back on track?

Is this too much to ask?
Frank