Microsoft NZ looks back at 2012

Microsoft New Zealand has taken a look back at 2012, documenting the company's highlights over the past twelve months.

Established in 1991, the kiwi division of the company now has around 180 across the country, working from Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch.

"We aspire to help New Zealand be smart, connected and competitive," Microsoft says.

2012 highlights include:

* Microsoft now offers Kiwis free access to web-based email, Office web apps, and communications through Outlook.com, SkyDrive.com, and Skype.com respectively.

*Schools have free use of much of Office365.com while Microsoft says their cloud services help thousands of Kiwi organisations modernise their IT, work smarter, and save.

*A decade of work on free Māori language interfaces was recognised in the Māori Language Awards 2012 also, as well as ongoing support for previous versions, touch-friendly Māori language interfaces are now available for Windows 8 and Internet Explorer 10.

*The Imagine Cup competition held by Microsoft attracted 400 entries from 1,500 New Zealand tertiary students, and the finals packed out the Auckland Town Hall.

The NZ winners reached the top six in the world with their work to help blind and visually impaired people.

*TechEd 2012 was the largest technical training conference in New Zealand, bringing together more than 2,000 people to learn cutting edge technology.

*Moving onto the app side and Kiwi companies continued to launch innovative new apps and services built on Microsoft technology in 2012.

These included GreenButton, Booktrack, Marker Metro, NV Interactive, iTICKET, find.ly, Vista Entertainment Solutions, Gen-i, Revera,

*Over 500 Kiwi software start-ups have been directly supported by Microsoft through our BizSpark.com programme.

*Microsoft was recognised as a Finalist for Best Contribution by a Multinational Company in the NZ Hi-Tech Awards 2012, while also ranking 1st for Corporate Social Responsibility in the global 2012 CSR RepTrak 100 Report.

For a more detailed look back at Microsoft's NZ achievements during 2012, visit TechDay for the remainder of the week when we examine each of the above areas more closely.

What do you think of Microsoft New Zealand's 2012 performance? Tell us your thoughts below