REDMOND, Wash. — June 21 , 2012 — Super 8 Hotels (China) Co. Ltd , partner of Super 8 Worldwide in China, chose the powerful business analysis capabilities of Microsoft SQL Server 2012. Super 8 Worldwide is one of the largest operators of budget hotels around the world and operates more than 2,300 hotels globally. Super 8 Hotels (China) manages more than 500 opened and to-be-opened hotels inside of China. The decision to deploy SQL Server 2012 in China enables Super 8 Hotels (China) management to analyze the performance of individual properties and the Chinese business as a whole while also determining the best growth opportunities within the region.

“Our rapid growth in China can be traced to the superior market and business insights we have gained from Microsoft SQL Server 2012,” said Joe Xu, senior vice president of distribution, Super 8 Hotels (China). “We can better determine our long-term development strategy.”

In order to better analyze increasing customer and staff information following the expansion goal of 1,000 hotels in China, Super 8 Hotels (China) deployed SQL Server 2012 to create a centralized information-sharing and business intelligence platform, aiming to lower total cost of ownership while improving availability, scalability and business insights for its mission-critical environment. Previous solutions forced management to manually gather data from each hotel, which was time-consuming and susceptible to human error. Super 8 Hotels (China) determined that SQL Server 2012 was the security-enhanced, reliable and cost-efficient cloud-ready solution it needed to improve its data management software, which allows managers to collaborate with one another for improved business insight.

SQL Server 2012 offers several valuable features that help address the company’s concerns. For example, SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn helps ensure high availability of business systems; SQL Server 2012 support of cloud computing allows it to run databases on-premises or in a cloud environment to meet changing business needs; and SQL Server Master Data Services enables the company to create, maintain, store and access the master data structure used for object mapping, data referencing and metadata management.

More information on Super 8 Hotels (China) choosing SQL Server 2012 is available in the case study, and more information about how organizations are turning to Microsoft technology is available on 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, Wash. — June 2 1 , 201 2 — Microsoft Corp.’s Trustworthy Computing Group today announced the top three finalists of its BlueHat Prize, a competition that awards researchers more than $250,000 in cash and prizes for developing new, innovative computer security protection technologies. Microsoft will announce the grand prize winner at its Researcher Appreciation Party on July 26, 2012, following the Black Hat briefings in Las Vegas.

In an effort to mitigate entire classes of vulnerabilities, Microsoft presented this challenge to the industry last August, spurring some of the brightest security minds across the globe. Microsoft was happy to see participation from across the research community and academia. After in-depth evaluation of the entries, Microsoft selected three finalists who each developed unique solutions that hinder attacks that leverage Return Oriented Programming (ROP). ROP is an advanced technique that attackers use to combine short pieces of benign code, already present in a system, for a malicious purpose.

The following, in alphabetical order, are the three finalists:

• Jared DeMott. DeMott is a researcher well-known for teaching a course titled “Application Security: For Hackers and Developers” at security conferences. DeMott submitted a BlueHat Prize entry called /ROP that checks to ensure that target addresses of return instructions, which ROP exploits use, are safe.

• Ivan Fratric. Fratric earned a Ph.D. in computer science and is a researcher at the University of Zagreb in Zagreb, Croatia. Fratric’s entry, named ROPGuard, defines a set of checks that can be used to detect when certain functions are being called in the context of malicious ROP code.

• Vasilis Pappas. Pappas is a Ph.D. student at Columbia University in the City of New York who actively researches information security. Pappas’ submission, called kBouncer, is a ROP mitigation technique that detects abnormal control transfers using common hardware features.

“Microsoft applauds these researchers who met the challenge and developed defensive solutions that go above and beyond conventional security practices focused on discovering individual issues,” said Mike Reavey, senior director, Microsoft Security Response Center. “We can’t wait to see how this initiative will inspire others to explore defensive technology research in order to potentially mitigate entire classes of vulnerabilities.”

Microsoft will reveal more information on the entries at the company’s Researcher Appreciation Party. The company will award one finalist $200,000 for the grand prize, while the first runner-up will win $50,000 and the second runner-up will win an MSDN Universal subscription valued at $10,000.

“Historically, the security industry has focused on rewarding researchers for identifying and reporting individual vulnerabilities,” said Brad Arkin, senior director, security, Adobe products and services. “The BlueHat Prize represents a new and exciting approach that motivates researchers to come up with solutions that will help mitigate entire classes of attacks against customers.”

The official BlueHat Prize competition rules and guidelines are available at http://www.BlueHatPrize.com. Microsoft accepted 20 contest entries from Aug. 3, 2011, until April 1, 2012, with the final entry being received just eight minutes before the deadline. After all the entries were submitted, a panel of Microsoft security engineers judged the submissions based on the following criteria: practicality and functionality (30 percent); robustness — how easy it would be to bypass the proposed solution (30 percent); and impact (40 percent).

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. — June 20, 2012 — The Danish Red Cross announced it will adopt Microsoft Office 365 to improve its communications needs and to reduce costs without compromising on capabilities. To help 250 employees connect more efficiently — and to help both prepare for disaster and provide disaster relief to those in need even faster — the nonprofit set a strategic mandate to strengthen its communications and service impact, starting with the Office 365 deployment.

The Danish Red Cross decided to trial Office 365, a set of collaboration tools that provides “anywhere access” to email, contacts and documents at a fraction of the cost typically associated with physical infrastructure.

“For us, response time is everything. If we can’t communicate, we can’t respond,” said Claus Olsen, chief information officer, Danish Red Cross. “With Office 365, we can share and act on information in just seconds — at half the cost of our previous solution.”

As part of the world’s largest humanitarian organization, the Danish Red Cross offers relief and support to those in need, especially in times of crisis. Because response time is critical in preparing for and responding to a disaster, fast and reliable communication is the lifeblood of the agency.

“We help build or rebuild communications infrastructure in places hit by hurricanes, floods or earthquakes,” Olsen said. “Time is critical in that effort, and so is coordinating across borders. We need to be sure we are using the best possible ways to communicate with each other in order to help those who need it most.”

For messaging and collaboration support, the Danish Red Cross previously used on-premises email servers. Although this technology provided a reliable way to exchange information, it was costly to manage and maintain. The organization also wanted to find ways to reduce travel expenses related to staff meetings, such as employing reliable videoconferencing that would enable colleagues to easily share documents or other information in near real time.

With a set of easy-to-use, cloud-based management tools, Office 365 makes it simple to transition to the cloud and stay connected to colleagues regardless of location. Plus, a fixed monthly per-user cost provides predictability — a great relief for a nonprofit organization that must routinely tackle the unexpected yet still provide real impact to those in need.

“With Office 365, our employees and volunteers can still get the critical information they need but at a cost significantly lower than we paid for our previous solution,” Olsen said. “And what we don’t spend on technology, we can allocate to aid.”

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

More information on Microsoft Office 365 is available in the Microsoft Office 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.