Article 5 --- 2/13/2010

http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/cnews/article.php/3863106/Microsoft-to-Help-Scientists-With-Free-Azure-Use.htm

This article written by Stuart J. Johnston entitled Microsoft to Help Scientists With Free Azure Use is about a new type of Microsoft program that allows free access to members of certain science organizations such as, NASDAQ: MSFT and the NSF, among others to help aid in more efficient ways of organizing data. As stated in the article, "the variety of sheer volume of data collected by scientific researchers has grown exponentially in recent years;" this is one of the reasons that they are allowing scientists to accss this software for free. I think that this is a good idea considering most people probably dont know what Microsoft Azure is. Science has become one of the most prominent studies in America and allowing for free software to help with these studies is a good idea. The con of this idea, as stated by the article is like anything else, it "is an enormous and expensive task in itself." With our economy in the shape it is in right now, this could pose a possible problem. That just means more and more of our tax dollars would be going to something else that is not necessarily going to bring this country out of the predicament we are in. But, everything has its pros and cons, we just need to find out if we will benefit from this more than we would hurt. Another thing that may pose a problem with this idea is that all you have to do access this software is by "applying to the NSF with a supplemental request for an already-funded project." Allowing anyone that is conducting a project that is funded to apply for the software allows for many to take advantage of this opportunity. There needs to be tight stipulations to this project for it to work well, but I do think it could work for the better.

-Adam Traywick