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Showing posts with label Microsoft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Microsoft. Show all posts
Saturday, February 23, 2019
Friday, March 16, 2018
Tariffs War: EU ready to hit big US tech firms with 3% turnover tax
Large digital companies with significant revenues in the European
Union such as Google and Facebook could face a 3% tax on their turnover
under a draft proposal by the European Commission.
The proposal, expected to be adopted next week and still subject to changes, updates an earlier draft which envisaged a tax rate of between 1 and 5%.
The tax, if backed by EU states and lawmakers, would only apply to large firms with annual worldwide revenues above €750 million ($924 million) and annual “taxable” revenues above €50 million in the EU.
The threshold for EU revenues has been raised from €10 million initially foreseen to exempt smaller companies and emerging start-ups from the tax.
Large US firms such as Uber, Airbnb and Amazon could also be hit by the new levy, which would apply across the 28 EU countries.
Read more: EU ready to hit big US tech firms with 3% turnover tax – EURACTIV.com
The proposal, expected to be adopted next week and still subject to changes, updates an earlier draft which envisaged a tax rate of between 1 and 5%.
The tax, if backed by EU states and lawmakers, would only apply to large firms with annual worldwide revenues above €750 million ($924 million) and annual “taxable” revenues above €50 million in the EU.
The threshold for EU revenues has been raised from €10 million initially foreseen to exempt smaller companies and emerging start-ups from the tax.
Large US firms such as Uber, Airbnb and Amazon could also be hit by the new levy, which would apply across the 28 EU countries.
Read more: EU ready to hit big US tech firms with 3% turnover tax – EURACTIV.com
Sunday, November 5, 2017
The Netherlands: Microsoft Signs New PPA for Wind Farm Electricity in the Netherlands - by Alyssa Danigelis
Microsoft signed a PPA with the Swedish state-owned energy company
Vattenfall to purchase all the electricity produced from a new
180-megawatt wind farm being built in the Netherlands, according to an announcement this week. The farm will be located in the Wieringermeer polder, near Amsterdam, next to Microsoft’s data center operations.
The 10-year deal, one of the largest wind PPAs in the Netherlands, is Vattenfall’s first with a data center outside Nordic countries. Nuon, part of Vattenfall, will be responsible for constructing and operating the wind farm. Eventually the company plans to expand the project to include 100 windmills, according to Microsoft. “That will allow the production of approximately 1.3 billion kilowatt hours of renewable electricity,” the announcement says.
The tech giant’s data center operations in the Netherlands are a regional hub for Microsoft Cloud service customers in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and beyond. Vattenfall and Microsoft already had a partnership prior to the PPA — the energy company uses Microsoft’s cloud-based tools for its business operations including the enterprise platform Azure for analytics.
Lately Microsoft has been on a roll with renewable energy. Last month the company signed a deal for 100% of the energy produced by GE’s new 37-megawatt wind farm in Ireland. Recently Microsoft opened a pilot for a data center in Seattle that uses integrated fuel cells and natural gas rather than power from the electrical grid. The company’s Cloud Infrastructure and Operations team hopes the fuel cells can one day work with renewable biogas instead.
The Wieringermeer site currently has 93 turbines that are set to be replaced with more powerful machines, Wind Power Monthly reported. “Combined with an adjacent extension the project’s additional capacity of 115 MW, Wieringermeer will have 100 turbines in total with a total capacity of 295 MW when completed,” reporter Craig Richard wrote. “Vattenfall will own 82 of these turbines, the nearby Energy Research Center of the Netherlands will own 17, and the remaining turbine will be reserved for local residents, the developer said.”
Construction on Vattenfall’s new wind farm is planned to start next year. The partners expect additional generation capacity to become available in 2020. Once the project is completed, it will likely be one of the largest wind farms in the Netherlands.
Read more: Microsoft Signs New PPA for Wind Farm Electricity in the Netherlands - Energy Manager Today
The 10-year deal, one of the largest wind PPAs in the Netherlands, is Vattenfall’s first with a data center outside Nordic countries. Nuon, part of Vattenfall, will be responsible for constructing and operating the wind farm. Eventually the company plans to expand the project to include 100 windmills, according to Microsoft. “That will allow the production of approximately 1.3 billion kilowatt hours of renewable electricity,” the announcement says.
The tech giant’s data center operations in the Netherlands are a regional hub for Microsoft Cloud service customers in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and beyond. Vattenfall and Microsoft already had a partnership prior to the PPA — the energy company uses Microsoft’s cloud-based tools for its business operations including the enterprise platform Azure for analytics.
Lately Microsoft has been on a roll with renewable energy. Last month the company signed a deal for 100% of the energy produced by GE’s new 37-megawatt wind farm in Ireland. Recently Microsoft opened a pilot for a data center in Seattle that uses integrated fuel cells and natural gas rather than power from the electrical grid. The company’s Cloud Infrastructure and Operations team hopes the fuel cells can one day work with renewable biogas instead.
The Wieringermeer site currently has 93 turbines that are set to be replaced with more powerful machines, Wind Power Monthly reported. “Combined with an adjacent extension the project’s additional capacity of 115 MW, Wieringermeer will have 100 turbines in total with a total capacity of 295 MW when completed,” reporter Craig Richard wrote. “Vattenfall will own 82 of these turbines, the nearby Energy Research Center of the Netherlands will own 17, and the remaining turbine will be reserved for local residents, the developer said.”
Construction on Vattenfall’s new wind farm is planned to start next year. The partners expect additional generation capacity to become available in 2020. Once the project is completed, it will likely be one of the largest wind farms in the Netherlands.
Read more: Microsoft Signs New PPA for Wind Farm Electricity in the Netherlands - Energy Manager Today
Thursday, January 26, 2017
The Have and Have's not: Bill Gates could become world’s first trillionaire
Microsoft founder Bill Gates could become the first dollar trillionaire
in 25 years, according to Oxfam, an international network of
organizations collectively working to tackle global poverty.
Given the exponential growth of his wealth Gates would have earned his first $1 trillion by the time he is 86 in 2042.
When Bill Gates left Microsoft in 2006, his was worth $50 billion. In the next decade his wealth has increased to $75 billion, "despite his commendable attempts to give it away through his Foundation," the report said, as quoted by CNBC.
Read more: Bill Gates could become world’s first trillionaire — RT Business
Given the exponential growth of his wealth Gates would have earned his first $1 trillion by the time he is 86 in 2042.
When Bill Gates left Microsoft in 2006, his was worth $50 billion. In the next decade his wealth has increased to $75 billion, "despite his commendable attempts to give it away through his Foundation," the report said, as quoted by CNBC.
Read more: Bill Gates could become world’s first trillionaire — RT Business
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