Microsoft launches Windows Azure

Demonstrating its leadership in cloud services, Microsoft India unveiled its
end-to-end offering for customers, partners and developers in India. To mark the
occasion, Microsoft India also announced commercial availability of the Windows
Azure Platform, an Internet-scale cloud services platform hosted in Microsoft's
datacenters.

With this, Microsoft is ready to make customers' journey to the cloud real
with enterprise-class cloud-based offerings across all three service layers in
the cloud including infrastructure, platform, and software applications. With
the newly launched cloud services in India, companies will be able to strengthen
their IT roadmap by including the cloud as a core component of their strategy in
order to drive higher productivity and efficiencies. Microsoft's estimates
reveal that with the Windows Azure Platform, customers and partners can realize
a reduction in total cost of operations of key workloads by up to 30 to 40
percent in three years.

The Windows Azure Platform provides a range of functionality to build
applications in a secure, interoperable and cost effective manner, spanning
scenarios from consumer Web to enterprise. Microsoft's rich ecosystem of
partners and developers have shown interest in this platform. More than 50
partners including HCL Technologies, Wings Info, Cerebrate and CDC Software, are
developing commercial applications and solutions on Windows Azure platform.