To contribute to the ongoing worldwide relief efforts for the victims of Japan’s 8.9 Earthquake and 13-foot tsunami that struck the Northeast region of the country on Friday, March 11, software giant Microsoft  is taking a number of steps to relieve the country, including an initial commitment of $2 million. This includes $250,000 in cash and $1.75 million in software and services to help those hit by the natural tragedy.

Besides money, the company is also taking other steps to ensure the safety of its employees and their families and assessing all facilities for any impact. Microsoft maintains an office in Sendai that was hardest hit by the Earthquake followed by Tsunami.

To get local businesses up and running, Microsoft is providing free incident support to help customers and partners impacted by the earthquake get their operations back up and running. The company is offering free temporary software licenses to all impacted customers and partners as well as lead governments, non-profit partners and institutions involved in disaster response efforts.

Additionally, it is making a cloud-based disaster response communications portal, based on Windows Azure available to governments and non-profits to enable them to communicate between agencies and directly with citizens. Plus, Exchange Online will be made available at no cost for 90 days to business customers in Japan whose communications and collaboration infrastructure may be affected, Microsoft said. The company is hoping that these small gestures will help them resume operations more quickly while their existing systems return to normal.

Furthermore, Microsoft’s Bing Maps is currently providing imagery of the area and is working on securing before and after imagery for a disaster response mapping application.

Other major organizations, listed on the Microsoft site, offering support to help the victims of the Japan Earthquake and pacific tsunami include NetHope, a collaboration of the world’s leading humanitarian response organizations; the American Red Cross; World Vision; Save the Children; International Medical Corps.; Mercy Corps.; and AidMatrix.