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Microsoft India is in a transformation mode.
The company is expanding as well as restructuring its operations
in order to have a stronger foothold in the Indian market.
“We have a renewed business focus in India
with the inception of a new India team and re-organisation of core
competencies around seven new business units,” said Microsoft
India managing director Rajiv Kaul.
“Microsoft’s confidence in the potential
of India has led to beefing up of the management team in India in
the last six months. We added 30 percent more resources last year.
We are in the process of making more hires,” Kaul claimed.
Microsoft India (excluding development centre) has around 300 people
working currently in India operations.
The idea is to capitalise on India’s potential
as a big IT market of future. In addition, India is also being seen
as the largest software service provider country in the world and
Indian software community is expected to play a critical role in
technology decisions of worldwide corporations.
While the new Microsoft strategy focuses on offering
affordable and secure products and services on one side, it also
aims to keep huge software developer community in good humour for
promotion of Microsoft technologies.
According to Kaul, the seven new business units
of Microsoft India under restructured plan include, Windows Client
(Windows operating system), Information Worker (Microsoft Office,
Microsoft Publisher, Microsoft Visio, Microsoft Project, and other
stand-alone desktop applications), Business Solutions (Great Plains
and Navision business process applications), Server Platforms (Windows
Server System and software developer tools).
Other units include Mobility (mobile devices
and Windows Powered Smartphone software platform), MSN (MSN network,
Internet and Hotmail) and Home and Entertainment (Microsoft Xbox,
consumer hardware and software, online games, and TV platform.)
However, in business solutions segment, Navision
(acquired by Microsoft worldwide last year) in India still remains
an independent business as Navision operations have not been merged
with Microsoft India.
Talking about the new India focus, Mr Kaul said
that the company would be focusing on enterprise space especially
on small and medium business (SMB) segment more aggressively. “We
are moving away from being a desktop company to being a solutions
driven company and providing solutions at an unmatched cost and
performance ratio. In India, we have a team of 35 professionals
for servicing the SMB segment. Microsoft (worldwide) is committed
to spend $2 billion in R&D for the SMB market, this year alone,”
he said.
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