TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Greece, Microsoft announce 1-billion-euro cloud investment
Greece and Microsoft announced an investment deal worth up to a billion euros ($1.2 billion) to build cloud storage infrastructure in the country.
Change Size
Greece and Microsoft announced an investment deal worth up to a billion euros ($1.2 billion) to build cloud storage infrastructure in the country. (Shutterstock/Volodymyr Kyrylyuk)
G
reece and Microsoft on Monday announced an investment deal worth up to a billion euros ($1.2 billion) to build cloud storage infrastructure in the country.
The announcement comes as Greece's pro-business government plans to gradually shift the country's notoriously bureaucratic civil service online.
"We are bringing data centers to Greece. We're going to create a new region that will include Greece as well as (neighboring countries)," Microsoft president Brad Smith told the project launch in Athens.
"This is a new opportunity for every small business in Greece... with cloud services, you pay for what you use, and you pay only when you use it," said Smith, adding companies would no longer need to invest in buying and maintaining servers.
The project foresees three data centers in the greater Athens area. No timeframe was given Monday.
Read also: Microsoft to invest $1 billion in Poland cloud
Microsoft currently has data centers in Germany, France, the Netherlands and Ireland, and is building more in Poland, Italy and Spain.
The Microsoft agreement also envisages training programs for 100,000 Greeks, officials said.
Microsoft is also designing an augmented reality website promoting Ancient Olympia, birthplace of the Olympic Games, to be released in 2021.
Through a cellphone application, visitors "will see in 3D the monuments and life in ancient Olympia exactly as it was 2.5 millennia ago," said Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
