Microsoft will offer three of its services from local data centres in India, lending its support to the Digital India initiative by the Centre.
In a video message, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the tech giant would bring Microsoft Azure, Dynamics (its CRM software solution), and Office 365, to India to accelerate cloud innovation, connect Indians as well as Indian businesses to the world through its cloud network. Microsoft aims to offer its customers, including government departments, cloud services by the end of this year.
Recently, Scott Guthrie, Executive Vice-President, Microsoft Cloud and Enterprise Group, said the initiative to offer these services from local data centres would help make Digital India a reality “We believe that the democratising force of software and digital technology will enable India’s future innovators and entrepreneurs to purse their dreams, Indian businesses to transform and seize the opportunities ahead, and enable the talent and ingenuity of the human capital in India to thrive,” Nadella said in his message. As part of this roadmap, Office 365 will be offered by the end of this year and the CRM software will be offered in the first half of next year, according to company sources.
For Microsoft, ever since Nadella took over, the focus has been largely centred around cloud and mobile-based solutions. In the last quarterly results, Microsoft estimated that commercial cloud services had annualised run-rate revenue of $6.3 billion and $1.58 billion for the quarter, which puts it on par with Amazon in the same quarter which clocked $1.57 billion in cloud services revenue, according to analysts.