REDMOND, Wash. — April 25, 2013 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the pricing of its offerings of €550 million of senior unsecured notes and $1.950 billion of senior unsecured notes. The notes consist of the following tranches:

• €550 million of 2.625 percent notes due May 2, 2033

• $450 million of 1.000 percent notes due May 1, 2018

• $1 billion of 2.375 percent notes due May 1, 2023

• $500 million of 3.750 percent notes due May 1, 2043

Microsoft intends to use the net proceeds from the offerings for general corporate purposes, which may include, among other things, funding for working capital, capital expenditures, repurchases of capital stock, acquisitions and repayment of existing debt. The offerings are expected to close on May 2, 2013.

A copy of the prospectus relating to the euro-denominated offering may be obtained by contacting Merrill Lynch International at 222 Broadway, New York, NY 10038, by emailing dg.prospectus_requests@baml.com or by calling toll-free at 1 (800) 294-1322; or The Royal Bank of Scotland plc at 135 Bishopsgate, London EC2M 3UR or by calling toll-free at 1 (866) 884-2071; or by contacting any of the other underwriters of the euro-denominated offering.

A copy of the prospectus relating to the U.S. dollar-denominated offering may be obtained by contacting Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated at 222 Broadway, New York NY 10038, by emailing dg.prospectus_requests@baml.com or by calling toll-free at 1 (800) 294-1322; or RBS Securities Inc. at 600 Washington Boulevard, Stamford CT 06091, or by calling toll-free at 1 (866) 884-2071; or by contacting any of the other underwriters of the U.S. dollar-denominated offering.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

REDMOND, Wash. — April 25, 2013 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the release of a new, revised version of its HIPAA Business Associate Agreement (BAA) for the company’s next-generation cloud services. This enables customers in the healthcare industry to leverage cloud solutions to coordinate care, improve patient health outcomes, and maintain compliance with privacy and security regulations issued under the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996. Addressing HIPAA is embedded in the DNA of Microsoft’s cloud solutions, and Microsoft updated its BAA to help healthcare organizations address compliance for the final omnibus HIPAA rule, which went into effect March 26. Microsoft’s updated BAA covers Office 365, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and Windows Azure Core Services.

“Team communication and collaboration is the lifeblood of the health industry, and more and more healthcare organizations are realizing the productivity, care team communications and cost-savings benefits of cloud computing,” said Dennis Schmuland, chief health strategy officer, U.S. Health & Life Sciences, Microsoft. “Microsoft Office 365 is the only major cloud business productivity solution to programmatically offer a BAA built with the industry, and for the industry, to HIPAA-regulated customers, allowing healthcare organizations to be confident in the security and privacy of their patient data while empowering their staff to communicate and collaborate virtually anytime and almost anywhere.”

Microsoft collaborated with some of the leading U.S. medical schools and their HIPAA privacy counsel, as well as other public- and private-sector HIPAA-covered entities, in creating a BAA for its cloud services.

The refreshed BAA aligns with new regulatory language included in the final omnibus HIPAA rule, such as the new definition of a Business Associate, which includes any entity that maintains protected health information on behalf of a HIPAA-covered entity and has access to such data, even if it does not view the data. It also covers important data protections, such as Microsoft’s reporting requirements in accordance with the HIPAA Breach Notification Rule, and Microsoft’s obligation to require its subcontractors who create, receive, maintain or transmit protected health information to agree to the same restrictions and conditions imposed on Microsoft pursuant to the applicable requirements of the HIPAA Security Rule. Allscripts is among the first organizations to leverage Microsoft’s updated BAA.

“We have programmatically offered a BAA for our healthcare customers since the launch of Office 365 nearly two years ago and have subsequently included our other cloud offerings such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and Windows Azure Core Services under the BAA,” said Hemant Pathak, assistant general counsel, Microsoft. “Addressing the clarifications and changes incorporated in the final omnibus HIPAA rule reaffirms Microsoft’s commitment to comply with security and privacy requirements and maintain its status as a transparent and trusted data steward for healthcare organizations leveraging the cloud.”

Office 365 is the first and only major cloud business productivity service to adopt the rigorous requirements of the federal government’s HIPAA Business Associate standards. Where the provision of services include storage of and access to electronic protected health information by a cloud provider, Microsoft’s substantial commitment to compliance helps healthcare customers placing protected health information in the cloud avoid potentially significant liability under HIPAA for failure to comply with applicable HIPAA contracting and safeguard requirements.

Microsoft offers a complete range of public, private and hybrid cloud solutions that support covered healthcare entities’ compliance needs and enables those organizations to move to the cloud at their own pace. Rather than using separate cloud vendors for productivity, collaboration, application hosting, data storage and relationship management, Microsoft’s customers can consolidate on one cloud, with one infrastructure partner with a common security and privacy framework specifically tailored to help address the compliance needs of healthcare-covered entities. To date, several dozen large HIPAA-covered entities across the healthcare, academic, commercial and government agency space have executed the BAA for Microsoft Online Services.

More information about how organizations are turning to Microsoft technology is available in the Microsoft Customer Spotlight newsroom.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

REDMOND, W ash. — April 22, 201 3 — Small businesses are losing more than US$24 billion in productivity each year when nontechnical employees, referred to as involuntary IT managers (IITMs), are tasked with managing their companies’ IT solutions. This loss is a direct result of IITMs taking time away from primary business activities, according to an AMI-Partners small-business study commissioned by Microsoft Corp.

The Involuntary IT Manager study takes a broad look at the prevalence of the IITM role in nine countries in North America, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia, focusing specifically on the adverse business productivity impact of IITMs in small business in five countries: Australia, Brazil, Chile, India and the United States. Surveying 538 IITMs across nationally representative samples of small businesses with 100 employees or less in the five countries, the AMI-Partners research study determined that approximately 3.8 million small businesses managed internal IT by IITMs. Although such small businesses spent US$83 billion on IT and communications, paradoxically they lost US$24 billion in productivity trying to manage their internal IT. The survey also found that small businesses’ IITMs think cloud-based solutions can help alleviate some of the burden of managing IT.

The D rawbacks of H aving an IITM

On average, IITMs lose six hours per week (around 300 hours per year) of business productivity while managing IT, according to AMI-Partners. The AMI-Partners white paper stated that while some IITMs are confident in their technical skills, most find their general work productivity suffers when their work time is diverted to managing IT issues. Key study findings include these:

• Thirty percent of all surveyed IITMs feel that IT management is a nuisance.

• Twenty-six percent indicated they do not feel qualified to manage IT.

• Six in 10 IITMs want to simplify their company’s technology solutions to alleviate the difficulty of managing IT day-to-day.

The Involuntary IT Manager study also found that when IITMs work at small businesses with 15 or more employees, their firms lose even more productivity time than IITMs working at companies with fewer employees.

“Many small businesses don’t have the budget for formal IT support, so they rely on the company’s most tech-savvy individual to manage their technology,” said Andy Bose, founder, chairman and CEO at AMI-Partners. “As our research shows, relying on an Involuntary IT Manager can have an adverse impact on small businesses’ productivity, which can negatively affect revenue and translates into a very high opportunity cost. These companies can potentially leverage cloud services to alleviate the need for day-to-day in-house IT support with positive impact on their business productivity.”

Small -B usiness C loud A doption

AMI-Partners found that IITMs are showing an interest in leveraging the cloud during the next 12 months to manage their IT needs. Among the IITMs surveyed in the five countries, the following was learned:

• Thirty-three percent (approximately one-third) are likely to shift more IT spending toward hosted or cloud solutions.

• Thirty-six percent are interested in a productivity and collaboration suite.

Although IITMs older than 50 spent the most time managing IT, the study found they are also the most likely to devote their limited IT budgets to acquiring cloud solutions and purchasing online productivity suites. Among the top concerns for IITMs in deploying cloud solutions were these:

• Security and privacy (66 percent)

• Reliability (61 percent)

• The ability to integrate with existing IT investments (53 percent)

• Limited features (46 percent)

“The cloud when delivered right is a game-changer, providing small businesses with the IT solutions they need to solve their most challenging small-business technology concerns,” said Thomas Hansen, vice president of SMB Worldwide at Microsoft. “With Microsoft cloud solutions, the job of the Involuntary IT Manager gets a lot easier.”

Microsoft democratizes IT for small businesses by providing enterprise-class solutions that level the IT playing field for small businesses. Office 365, Windows Intune, Windows Azure and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online are Microsoft’s most complete cloud services to date. They provide small businesses with access to powerful applications from anywhere and on multiple devices with both privacy and security features built into each solution. More information about how cloud-based solutions from Microsoft, such as Office 365, can help small businesses can be found at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us. The complete Involuntary IT Manager survey can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/presskits/smb.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

REDMOND, W ash. — April 22, 201 3 — Small businesses are losing more than US$24 billion in productivity each year when nontechnical employees, referred to as involuntary IT managers (IITMs), are tasked with managing their companies’ IT solutions. This loss is a direct result of IITMs taking time away from primary business activities, according to an AMI-Partners small-business study commissioned by Microsoft Corp.

The Involuntary IT Manager study takes a broad look at the prevalence of the IITM role in nine countries in North America, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia, focusing specifically on the adverse business productivity impact of IITMs in small business in five countries: Australia, Brazil, Chile, India and the United States. Surveying 538 IITMs across nationally representative samples of small businesses with 100 employees or less in the five countries, the AMI-Partners research study determined that approximately 3.8 million small businesses managed internal IT by IITMs. Although such small businesses spent US$83 billion on IT and communications, paradoxically they lost US$24 billion in productivity trying to manage their internal IT. The survey also found that small businesses’ IITMs think cloud-based solutions can help alleviate some of the burden of managing IT.

The D rawbacks of H aving an IITM

On average, IITMs lose six hours per week (around 300 hours per year) of business productivity while managing IT, according to AMI-Partners. The AMI-Partners white paper stated that while some IITMs are confident in their technical skills, most find their general work productivity suffers when their work time is diverted to managing IT issues. Key study findings include these:

• Thirty percent of all surveyed IITMs feel that IT management is a nuisance.

• Twenty-six percent indicated they do not feel qualified to manage IT.

• Six in 10 IITMs want to simplify their company’s technology solutions to alleviate the difficulty of managing IT day-to-day.

The Involuntary IT Manager study also found that when IITMs work at small businesses with 15 or more employees, their firms lose even more productivity time than IITMs working at companies with fewer employees.

“Many small businesses don’t have the budget for formal IT support, so they rely on the company’s most tech-savvy individual to manage their technology,” said Andy Bose, founder, chairman and CEO at AMI-Partners. “As our research shows, relying on an Involuntary IT Manager can have an adverse impact on small businesses’ productivity, which can negatively affect revenue and translates into a very high opportunity cost. These companies can potentially leverage cloud services to alleviate the need for day-to-day in-house IT support with positive impact on their business productivity.”

Small -B usiness C loud A doption

AMI-Partners found that IITMs are showing an interest in leveraging the cloud during the next 12 months to manage their IT needs. Among the IITMs surveyed in the five countries, the following was learned:

• Thirty-three percent (approximately one-third) are likely to shift more IT spending toward hosted or cloud solutions.

• Thirty-six percent are interested in a productivity and collaboration suite.

Although IITMs older than 50 spent the most time managing IT, the study found they are also the most likely to devote their limited IT budgets to acquiring cloud solutions and purchasing online productivity suites. Among the top concerns for IITMs in deploying cloud solutions were these:

• Security and privacy (66 percent)

• Reliability (61 percent)

• The ability to integrate with existing IT investments (53 percent)

• Limited features (46 percent)

“The cloud when delivered right is a game-changer, providing small businesses with the IT solutions they need to solve their most challenging small-business technology concerns,” said Thomas Hansen, vice president of SMB Worldwide at Microsoft. “With Microsoft cloud solutions, the job of the Involuntary IT Manager gets a lot easier.”

Microsoft democratizes IT for small businesses by providing enterprise-class solutions that level the IT playing field for small businesses. Office 365, Windows Intune, Windows Azure and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online are Microsoft’s most complete cloud services to date. They provide small businesses with access to powerful applications from anywhere and on multiple devices with both privacy and security features built into each solution. More information about how cloud-based solutions from Microsoft, such as Office 365, can help small businesses can be found at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us. The complete Involuntary IT Manager survey can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/presskits/smb.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.