Mexico City – Microsoft has inaugurated its first technology center in Latin America, a facility in this capital that will be used to train around 2,300 software developers.

During a luncheon Tuesday to mark the 25th anniversary of Microsoft Mexico, executives said the software giant will invest more than $600 million in the country in the coming years, although without providing further details.

The goal of the Microsoft Technology Center is to provide companies with access to technology in a "simple and palpable way," the global director of the Microsoft Technology Center Alliances Program, Chuck McCann, said.

Organizations in Mexico and Latin America will be able to test out their products in simulated environments that replicate the same conditions that businesses face in their day-to-day operations, McCann said.

Some of the platforms are highly complex and difficult to understand, but the center gives clients detailed, hand-on instruction in using them, McCann said during the luncheon attended by President Felipe Calderon.

Calderon, for his part, praised Microsoft for revolutionizing the technological world and hailed the MTC opening and the investment plan.

Located at the Microsoft building in the Mexican capital, the MTC-Mexico City contains special rooms that simulate three business scenarios: the office, the home and mobile devices.

It also has space for meetings and video conferences.

The MTC-Mexico City is the company's first Spanish-language technology center and the first of its kind in Latin America, although another location is scheduled to open in the coming months in Brazil.

Microsoft has 11 MTC locations in the United States, including New York, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago and Dallas, and 14 others around the world in cities such as Moscow, Munich, Paris and Tokyo.