MUMBAI, INDIA: Microsoft India today announced the commercial availability of the Windows Azure Platform, an Internet-scale cloud services platform hosted in Microsoft’s datacentres.
 
Today’s move would enable companies in India to strengthen their IT roadmap by including the cloud as a core component of their strategy to drive higher productivity and efficiencies, said a press release.

Rajan Anandan, managing director, Microsoft India said, “No other company matches the flexibility and the power of choice that Microsoft provides to customers —to select how they deploy software either on premise, in the cloud, or a combination of both, and, of course, the ability to access  technology across multiple screens – viz the phone, PC and Internet.”

“We believe that Microsoft’s initiative and leadership in cloud services will be beneficial to customers, partners and developers as we architect our solutions to optimize for cloud and on-premises solutions,” he added.

The Windows Azure Platform provides a range of functionality to build applications in a secure, interoperable and cost effective manner, spaning scenarios from consumer Web to enterprise.

Today, customers have access to over 3000 applications on Azure platform, fifty of them for various vertical scenarios including healthcare, Finance and Accounting etc, said the release.

‘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. 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.