John Markoff of the NY Times has coverage of today’s announcement of an agreement between the National Science Foundation and Microsoft that would enable NSF-sponsored researchers free access to Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing services. According to NSF CISE AD Jeannette Wing, NSF will commit $5 million in funding to enable researchers to study new techniques for using advanced cloud computing resources to enable scientific discovery. Microsoft will grant the researchers free access to the cloud services, as much storage as they need, and contribute support and expertise to help the researchers make the best use of this “new computing paradigm.”

Dan Reed, Microsoft’s VP for Technology Strategy and Policy and the Extreme Computing Group, shares his view of the new partnership. And Wing weighs in with a Dear Colleague.