Jean-Philippe Courtois, President of Microsoft International, has praised the Maltese government's focus on IT, calling it "one of the most innovative governments in Europe" when it came to IT-driven services.
Mr Courtois was speaking alongside IT Minister Austin Gatt before they signed a €17 million strategic partnership agreement at the ministry in Valletta.
Central to the agreement is the setting up, by Microsoft, or an innovation centre for cloud computing in Malta next year. The agreement, which will stretch to 2016, will also enable teachers and students to purchase Microsoft software packages at a heavily discounted price.
The innovation centre on cloud computing will be the first in the world. It will offer training on the use of cloud computing, access to cloud computing facilities as well as assistance in developing cloud computing software to launch in the local market and overseas.
Cloud computing is the delivery of IT software and services through a shared network. Rather than software being hosted on individual PCs or servers, information is stored online, in the 'cloud'.
Cloud computing was the future, Mr Courtois said, doing away with the need to purchase expensive computers or servers and allowing individual users the ability to compete.
Dr Gatt said cloud computing made economies of scale possible within the IT sector. It provided small businesses with the ability to access the same software packages used by much larger organisations, due to its focus on pay-per-use.
The minister said that the partnership, the third such agreement between Microsoft and the Maltese government, was a significant coup for Malta.
When asked about the compatibility between this partnership agreement and the government's Open Source Vision white paper, published last year, Dr Gatt argued that there was no incompatibility between the two. The government, he said, was committed to focusing on open standards, but it was then left up to individual developers and users to decide on what platforms they wished to use. There was no intention to standardise IT platforms across government departments, Dr Gatt continued.
Questioned about the possibility of Microsoft moving its local offices to Smart City, Adrianna Zammit, Microsoft country manager for Malta, said that the company was currently evaluating a number of locations, including Smart City, but that no decision had yet been taken.
The strategic partnership agreement also provides secondary and tertiary level students with access to Live@Edu, a Microsoft-driven cloud service which allows users to store their documents, photos and files on the cloud.