Microsoft launches Windows Azure Platform in India

Demonstrating its leadership in cloud
services, href="http://www.ciol.com/Developer/Operating-System/Feature/Microsoft-India-unveils-CLIP-for-developers/3209115509/0/">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. “Microsoft has always led the industry in the
software space. With businesses looking to the cloud to bring higher
efficiencies, it is natural for us to extend our strength and
expertise of the past 15 years in the cloud space and offer the value
of our experience to customers,” said Rajan Anandan, MD, Microsoft
India.

While with the Windows Azure Platform,
Microsoft is making the platform available as a service, over the
last two years Microsoft has already launched several products and
solutions in India across other layers as part of its cloud strategy
for enterprises. These include hosted Dynamics, Office Web Apps,
Microsoft Online Services, Windows Server, SystemCentre and the
Dynamic Data Center Toolkit. “This completes our cloud stack. All
of our popular products are already cloud-ready, and we have a clear
future roadmap to provide anytime, anywhere access across diverse
devices spanning computer, mobile and Internet,” said Anandan.

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
customers, partners and developers in India has demonstrated
overwhelming enthusiasm for the platform. More than 50 partners
including HCL Technologies, Wings Info, Cerebrate and CDC Software
are developing commercial applications and solutions on Windows Azure
platform.

Today, customers have access to over
3000 applications on Azure platform and 50 of them for various
vertical scenarios including healthcare, Finance and Accounting etc.
'We strongly believe Indian enterprises are ready for the Cloud,
and we are excited about the opportunity that Windows Azure platform
brings to Companies like us. With HCL Management application
developed on Windows Azure, we will be able to rapidly deliver
cloud-based applications that work seamlessly with the rest of the
enterprise infrastructure, helped along by Microsoft's holistic cloud
strategy,” said GH Rao, Corporate VP and Head-Engineering and R&D
Services, HCL Technologies.

Cost efficiencies are being seen as one
of the key benefits of the cloud computing paradigm. “SMBs in India
are looking for low cost solutions without the hassle of running an
in-house infrastructure. Windows Azure is not only a reliable and
scalable platform for customers to access online services, but also
enables us to create feature-rich applications for different devices
and a large set of users without worrying about IT infrastructure,”
said Ajay Gandhi, MD, Wings Infonet.

“The security and reliability offered
by Windows Azure is expected to attract a large customer base on the
cloud which we believe should increase the adoption of the services
model for critical sectors such as banking and government,” said
Nagaraja Prakasam, MD,CDC Software, South and Southeast Asia.