Please have a look at this
Click to access protocollo_microsoft.pdf
If you don’t know Italian isn’t a problem since it isn’t even written in proper Italian.
Summary for this trash: Microsoft got a cofinancing in order to plant 3 new centers in certain cities of Italy (that also happen to be the ones in which you have active open source centers for innovations), the government grants some founds and Microsoft adds 1M$ in 3 years(in software licenses and other non-cash stuff like that). Note Microsoft receives at least 1000 times from the Italian public administration every year (the yearly cost of Microsoft licenses).
Why IBM, Canonical or even Novel won’t start making such deals?