Microsoft’s president, Jean-Phillipe Courtois announced this week that his company will be spending a great deal of money this year on exploring and improving Microsoft online services offerings and solutions. Specifically in the area of security, privacy and regulatory compliance requirements being pushed by US Federal government agencies. 90% of its research budget on improving cloud computing technologies and with their annual R&D budget for 2010 being $9.6 billion, that’s a whopping $8.6 billion investment, more than the annual budget of most small countries!