Microsoft software program to benefit students worldwide

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates Tuesday announced a software giveaway program that would give students around the world free access to his company's software-development tools.

The program, dubbed Microsoft DreamSpark, was introduced by Gates in his speech at Stanford University near San Francisco. Gates announced his departure from Microsoft's day-to-day operations management about two year ago, and began a full-time career on charity efforts.

Microsoft is making the free software immediately available to about 35 million students enrolled in colleges in 10 countries, including the United States, Britain, China, France and Germany. The program will be expanded to more countries in six months.

The software, including Visual Studio, Microsoft's suite of programming languages, and Expression Studio, a tool for designing user interfaces and Web pages, would cost thousands of dollars to buy, company officials said.

Microsoft's free software would benefit not only students, but also the company itself and even the whole society, if more young people are exposed to programming opportunities at little cost, analysts said.