Microsoft signs research center deal with French gov’t

In a move that will certainly boost Microsoft - French relations, today Microsoft has signed off on a deal to work with the French in efforts to plan a research center for computer security and computational science.

Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer met French Minister of Research François d’Aubert in Paris Tuesday to discuss their plans to create a center for joint research into computer security and computational science.

The company will collaborate with INRIA, the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control, to set up the Microsoft (Profile, Products, Articles)-INRIA Institute for Computational Science at Orsay, on the outskirts of Paris, by early 2006. Microsoft and INRIA will share control of the center, Ballmer said.

The center will focus on two areas of research: the use of mathematical techniques to improve the reliability and security of software by proving that it will behave as expected, and computational science, the use of computing power to conduct experiments through simulation and modelling.

Ballmer and D’Aubert signed a memorandum of understanding setting out a framework for the venture. Andrew Herbert, head of Microsoft Research Ltd., the company’s lab in Cambridge, England, and Gilles Kahn, CEO of INRIA, also signed. [Read the rest]