2011 Microsoft Citizenship Report: CEO Intro Letter

To Our Stakeholders:

We’ve always believed that technology creates opportunities for people and organizations to achieve their dreams. This belief continues to drive us towards new inventions and new markets so we can impact the lives of billions of people around the world.

This report shares some of the important work we’re doing in our communities, and our efforts to manage a responsible business. It explains our Citizenship actions in fiscal year 2011 and together with our annual financial report gives a complete picture of our work and highlights our focus for the year ahead.

Our Citizenship work supports our mission—to help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential. It is reflected in the frequent and candid interactions we have with our stakeholders—employees, shareholders, customers, suppliers, partners, and neighbors—all critical to a responsible and sustainable business.

The impact we have made through our Citizenship initiatives during the past year spanned disaster relief to education. For example, we developed new ways to help teachers and schools use technology to make learning more engaging. We created a new system that supports volunteerism by matching employees with nonprofits in need based on their skills. We were also honored to partner with the organizations in Japan to deploy our cloud technologies to help those affected by the earthquake and tsunami get the critical information and help needed as part of the relief and recovery efforts.

At Microsoft, we believe that hope rests in the steady progress toward the future and we are driven to support new businesses and learning opportunities for people around the world. This year alone, we equipped 75,000 people with software to grow their small business through our BizSpark program. We also reached 23 million people through the Community Technology Skills Program. And our Partners in Learning program, now in its ninth year, worked with schools and governments to spread teachers’ ideas for how to use technology to create more dynamic classrooms.

We also remain committed to operating our business responsibly. You will read in this report some of the steps we’ve taken to strengthen our supply chain, monitor and manage our environmental footprint, promote human rights, and continue our leadership in corporate governance, compliance, and political involvement. As a signatory of the UN Global Compact, each of these areas is part of that commitment. But even more importantly, each of these makes our business stronger and more resilient to a world that changes rapidly.

As we enter a new year, I am optimistic that the ideas, passion, and tenacity that are central to our Citizenship will continue to create value for our business and for the people and communities we touch. Thank you for your interest in Microsoft. We welcome your thoughts and suggestions.

Sincerely,

Steven A. Ballmer
, Microsoft Corp.