Search engine Google on Wednesday said it will offer $20,000 each in free credits for ‘Google Cloud Services’ to the top 1,000 start-ups in India over the next one year (starting 2016).

The company will offer these credits with certain criteria such as start-ups that are less than five years old and have less than $5 million funding.

This would help start-ups in India that are held back by a lack of computing to power, to build, deploy and scale the next big innovation on the web, the company said.

Starting Wednesday, the company will also cover the fees of Google Apps for any business locked into an enterprise agreement (EA) with another provider until its contract runs out, it said.

The company aims to obtain better market share from rivals, including Microsoft, through this multi-million dollar initiative in India.

It will also chip in with some of the deployment costs for setting up Google Apps, the company said, adding that once the current EA is up, it will offer a simple contract with no additional traps.

According to estimates, this will help most businesses with basic EAs and no dependencies to potentially unlock savings of up to 70 per cent by switching to 'Google Apps for Work'.

Google already works with companies such as Hero MotoCorp, Royal Enfield, Bombay Dyeing and Welspun as well as start-ups like Commonfloor, ixigo, freshdesk and housing.com. It also has Snapdeal, Flipkart, Ola, Paytm and Freecharge. “With the second largest developer population in the world, India is poised to be home to the next generation of global software firms. We will further bring down the barriers for companies to make the switch to Google Apps,” Amit Singh, President - Google For Work, said.

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