Microsoft is committed to helping businesses maximize business value by leveraging cloud computing : Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft Corporation

Cloud services will create over 300,000 jobs in India by 2015

India has potential to emerge as the global competency center for Cloud Services

NIIT, CDC, Cognizant, IISc share plans based on Microsoft cloud services platform

Following the successful launch of Microsoft’s comprehensive cloud services offerings, Microsoft today underlined the importance of India in its overall cloud services strategy. Sharing results of a study by global management consultants Zinnov, Microsoft reiterated that India has the potential to emerge as the global competency centre for cloud services. Several announcements by Microsoft partners echoed the big bets they are placing on Microsoft cloud services platform.

The Zinnov study estimates the global cloud computing market to be over $ 70 billion by 2015. India, with its powerful ecosystem of over 1300 independent software vendors (ISVs), 1.4 million developers and more than 11000 system integrators (SIs and Custom software development organizations), is ideally poised to address this growing opportunity. As a result, an additional 300,000 jobs related to cloud services are estimated to be created in India over the next 5 years.

Speaking on the subject Mr. Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft Corporation said, “India will not only see a surge in consumption of cloud services, driving growth in domestic IT usage, but companies all over the world will look to India to support their transition to cloud computing. Microsoft is committed to helping businesses both in India and across the world maximize business value by leveraging the benefits that the cloud offers.” Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure supports over one billion customers and 20 million businesses globally, today.

Leaders from industry and academia also reiterated this view and shared details of the big bets they are placing on Microsoft Cloud Services:

• NIIT, leading Global Talent Development Corporation, will train over 100,000 students on Windows Azure over the next three years
• Cognizant, a leading SI, announced the creation of a vertically aligned set of industry frameworks and pre-built solution accelerators to enable implementation, migration and management of cloud-enabled application portfolios built on Azure for clients both in India and globally
• CDC Software, enterprise software and services applications provider, announced the global roll out of its flagship product ‘CDC Respond’ (a complaint and feedback management application for banking and government sectors) on Windows Azure
• Indian Institute of Science - Bangalore, is building a large-scale application on Windows Azure to study the basic resource allocation constructs and strategies required for addressing enterprise needs on the cloud

These announcements are in addition to the over 4000 applications that have already been built on the Windows Azure platform by India. ISVs and SIs including Wipro, Infosys, TCS, HCL Technologies and Mahindra Satyam are building applications and solutions across verticals ranging from healthcare to banking to manufacturing for both local and global markets. Academic institutions such as the IITs and IIITs are also building large India-relevant projects leveraging Microsoft’s Azure platform.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Rajendra Pawar, Chairman, NIIT said, “We are excited about our enduring partnership with Microsoft. We foresee the power of the cloud and the following gap in the skill set. Through our exclusive program, our attempt is to offset this gap by churning out first-day first-hour trained professionals on Windows Azure”.

“Windows Azure helps customers unlock the value that can be derived from cloud-enabled services, and helps them build strong and agile businesses,” said Mr. Chandrasekaran, President and MD (Global Delivery), Cognizant. “We are actively extending this proposition to global markets and rapidly ramping up our capabilities to deliver robust, scalable and secure cloud services to enterprise customers,” he added.

Peter Yip, CEO, CDC Software said, “Microsoft Windows Azure provides a potent tool set and environment for the development and deployment of cloud-based products. It is the ideal platform for the cloud version of ‘CDC Respond’ given its ease of use, dynamic scaling and minimal maintenance. I am confident that the security and reliability offered by Windows Azure will accelerate the adoption of the services model in critical and data sensitive scenarios, and increase overall customer confidence in the inevitable move to the cloud.”

‘‘Robust platforms such as Microsoft Windows Azure, coupled with the scalability and cost efficiencies that Cloud Computing represents, makes Information Technology now a more important resource that can be leveraged to alleviate some of India’s large socio- economic problems. Ours is a landmark project in that sense and we believe it will stand as testament to innovative use of technology for the greater good.’ added Prof S K Nandy, Indian Institute of Science.

Microsoft cloud services, based on the software plus services vision, spans all the three service layers in the cloud and delivers Software as a Service, Platform as a Service and Infrastructure as a Service. As a result, businesses can choose to adopt a mix of cloud-based and on-premise computing models while experiencing the same familiar environment and fidelity.