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Undercover Good Deeds: Microsoft Helps Vets Train, Find Jobs

Tech news is normally filled with items like the recent nasty war of words and tweets between Microsoft and Google over whether Microsoft is conspiring to use patents to try and kill Android. But there's plenty of tech-related good news you don't read about -- like Microsoft's stepping up efforts to train veterans and help them get jobs. Read on for details.

Microsoft was one of the companies at a public event today at the Washington Navy Yard as President Obama announced a variety of public and private programs for helping veterans get training to enter the workforce, and to get jobs.

Microsoft announced that it's expanding its help for veterans. In concert with the U.S. Department of Labor, it will distribute 10,000 technology training and certification packages to veterans. And it will increase its training and job help to veterans to a total of $12 million. Microsoft also has a Military2Microsoft program that reaches out to veterans and those in the National Guard and Reserve to help find jobs at Microsoft.

These are cynical times and it's easy believe that any philanthropy by tech companies is merely self-serving. But that's not the case. Tech companies like Microsoft, Google, and many others do more than just make profits -- they also try to help people as well. It's easy to forget that, and believe that if companies employ hardball business tactics, they can't be doing good in the world through philanthropy.

The money and energy Microsoft devotes to veterans, by itself, won't change the world. But it certainly will help veterans, and remind us that sometimes it's a good idea to put aside our cynicism and recognize good works.

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