Microsoft explores Pune for R&D center

PUNE: At the backdrop of outsourcing backlash in the US, world’s largest software maker, Microsoft Corporation is planning to expand its foothold in India. The company’s Vice President, Daniel T Ling has come calling to Pune to explore the possibility of setting up an offshore research center and collaborating with research institutions in seven key areas.

A three member delegation comprising of Daniel Ling, Microsoft Research manager, PS Anandan and Microsoft India, country head, Ravi Venkatesan held a two hour closed door meeting with top-notch city academicians exploring the possibilities Pune had on offer. The University of Pune organized the meeting.

Ling was one of the founders of Microsoft research laboratory and contributed to the development of Microsoft .Net platform. Pune University vice chancellor Ashok Kolaskar, who termed this as an exploratory meeting, said that the effort had been aimed at projecting Pune as an attractive investment destination. "The Microsoft officials were impressed with what we had to offer," he said, after the meeting.

Although Microsoft has a big software development center at Hyderabad, Ling’s visit is being viewed as significant as he is reported to be scouting for a partner to develop the next generation computer application and high generation tools. Kolaskar said that the team from Pune had made attempts to present an attractive picture of Pune, explaining how the industry and academia were different besides the fact that the city had more to offer than BPO. He said that the Microsoft officials had shown keen interest but remained non-committal.

Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture (MCCIA) IT sub-committee chairman Deepak Shikarpur said that the he had spoken about the Gramin Information Center project and urged the Microsoft officials to see how the farmers were using it. He also said that Computer Society of India (CSI) was discussing a project called `Shiksha’ with Microsoft for training teachers in C and D class cities.

Microsoft officials held a separate meeting with the officials of Center for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC). It’s director D Sharad Purohit said that that C-DAC had made a presentation before the Microsoft team on the possibility of collaborating with them in fundamental research related to high performance computing (supercomputing), scientific computing and bioinformatics. "We took them around our facility. However, they remained non-committal," he said.

Head of the computational mathematics laboratory at TIFR, Narendra Karmarkar also participated in the meeting. STPI, Pune executive director SK Gupta, Inter-University Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), National Center for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) and Institute of Engineering and Technology, Cummins College of Engineering and MCCIA were part of the meeting.

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