BANGALORE, INDIA: With a deployment of over 18,000 units, Oil & Natural Gas Corporation Ltd. (ONGC) has emerged as Microsoft Corporation's largest Windows Vista customer in Asia.

Specific features that ONGC expects to leverage include the security attributes built into Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) like Phishing Filters and Protected Mode; the User Account Control (UAC) functionality; optimized deployment capabilities across thousands of machines and the Green IT features including power management and energy saving.

To ensure a smooth transition and maximum returns, ONGC conducted company-wide trainings for employees and the outcome of was Windows Vista has been extremely positive, the release added.

M. Thyagaraj, executive director, Chief Information Services, ONGC Ltd. said: "As India's largest Oil & Gas organisation with a pan-India presence, we depend extensively on technology to ensure smooth running of our core business. From our perspective, the desktop operating system is mission critical, and it was imperative for ONGC to deploy the best offering, that would meet requirements viz. security, ease of use, mobile computing and significant increase in employee productivity."

He further added, "Windows Vista, deployed recently on the new Laptops, has all these features and also provides us with immense energy saving capabilities – definitely a huge advantage in our business."

"India has always been a trend setter in technology usage and it is fantastic that one of the largest worldwide deployments of Windows Vista is at one of India's Navratna companies. This implementation is a great testament to the value that Windows Vista brings to organisations by providing them with huge advancements in the areas of security, productivity, search and ease of use," said Rajiv Srivastava, general manager,  Enterprise & Partner Group, Microsoft India.