Microsoft has announced two more partnering agreements with large training and simulation companies for its recently unveiled Microsoft ESP visual simulation platform.

Lockheed Martin and FlightSafety International both will use ESP as part of their efforts to lower costs in their simulation on aircrew training. Those companies join Northrop Grumman and SAIC as large integrators who have joined with Microsoft on use of ESP, which was announced in November and became available Jan. 1.

“They’re seeing what we had hoped they would find, and that is affordable training in a learning environment that can be provided through a single platform,” said Shawn Firminger, manager of Microsoft’s ACES studio that oversees ESP.

Firminger said that although the partnerships do not limit the two companies from using other platforms, “it takes over the burden they’ve had of maintaining a variety of different visual systems they had” at a lower cost.

Microsoft has also reached agreements with other companies that specialize in training and simulation, including CAE and its independent unit, Presagis. Firminger said the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant continues to talk with others in industry and some Defense Department offices.

“We see ourselves as providing a visual platform for the industry, and we think that will really broaden the use of modeling and simulation to a wider variety of scenarios than previously which, because of their cost structure, wasn’t possible because it was too expensive. Now you can just bridge the immersive training environment,” Firminger said.

For now, use of the database available on ESP is limited to air visuals that were originally conceived on the company’s “Flight Simulator” commercial franchise. Firminger said Version Two will include ground-based visuals and that Microsoft has a two-year timetable for that release.