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 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. Speaking on the occasion, 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 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.' 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.
