Microsoft strengthens its product portfolio for SMBs

BANGALORE, INDIA: Rajeev Mittal, Group Director-Small and Medium Enterprise, Microsoft India elaborates on the various offerings from Microsoft to Indian SMBs.

Excerpts:

CIOL: A brief note on the Microsoft's offerings to the SMB market. Of the various products, which of them have the highest reach among SMBs?

Rajeev Mittal: The unique value proposition of Microsoft's products lies not only in their familiarity and ease of use, but also in their ability to customize easily and cater to specific needs of different business verticals or segments. While the last mile of customization is delivered through our extensive partner network in India, Microsoft also offers products tailored for the small and medium businesses (SMBs), which is an important segment for us.

Mid market segment products include:

· 2007 Microsoft Office System - helps organizations work efficiently and effectively with a new set of powerful tools for creating, managing, analyzing and sharing information.

· Windows Server 2003 R2 - helps businesses to increase effectiveness of computing operations while reducing IT costs. New features simplify and improve branch server management, storage management, and identity and access management.

· Exchange Server 2007 - designed to meet the messaging and collaboration needs of SMBs. It may also be appropriate for specific server roles or branch offices.

· SQL Server 2005 - An affordable option for both small and medium-sized organizations that includes the core functionality needed for non-critical e-commerce, data warehousing, and line-of-business solutions. It is optimized to run on win32, x64, and Itanium-based servers

· Microsoft Forefront for Exchange Server includes multiple scan engines from industry-leading security firms integrated in a single solution to help businesses protect their Exchange messaging environments from viruses, worms, and spam

Microsoft offers the following additional products catering to the unique requirements of small businesses

Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 - a complete and affordable network solution that provides small businesses with many of the features used by large companies in a single package. It keeps data more secure and protects business information, while maximizing employee productivity and enhancing customer communications.

Windows Vista Business - the first Windows operating system designed specifically to meet the needs of small and mid market businesses. It helps businesses work more effectively, stay connected (both in and out of the office), and better protect key information.

Microsoft Dynamics - Microsoft's line of business management solutions is a solution that has been built grounds up for SMB customers and helps streamline financial, customer relationship and supply chain management. The Dynamics range offers the broadest product line-up for this segment including CRM, financial management (also called ERP), SCM and vertical solutions that offer customers great technology solutions that are integrated with Microsoft's productivity and platform applications.

CIOL: What percentage of growth has Microsoft witnessed in marketing its products to the SMB segment?

RM: Microsoft has been one of the first companies to start focusing on SMBs and developing solutions for them. This focused approach towards the SMB segment over the past five years is paying us rich dividends due to our deep understanding of the needs of this fast growing and rapidly evolving market. Today the SMB segment contributes a significant portion of our revenues and is one of the fastest growing divisions for Microsoft in India.

CIOL: What are the factors that are driving customers to deploy your products?

RM: Microsoft's success with its customers is the result of our deep understanding of the needs of the small and mid-size businesses, and based on this understanding the development of best of breed products, ranging from the Microsoft Operating System to ERP solutions. Moreover we also offer products and solutions which have been specially designed for the SMB segment. These include Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 and Vista that has been launched recently. It offers several editions for different customer segments. Moreover Microsoft products bring to the table ease of use, familiarity as well as a lower total cost of ownership.

Our products are taken to discerning customers through our 3,500 strong partner network. They enable the last mile of both horizontal as well as vertical functionality and deliver the final customer experience. Our partners work with customers to ensure that from among the wide options available from Microsoft they adopt the technology/ solutions most suited to their business to make them globally competitive.

CIOL: In your view, how is the scene as regards IT implementation among SMBs, who were hitherto refraining from spending on IT infrastructure?

RM: According to a recent AMI Partners report, IT penetration among the SMBs was very low and their IT spend in the past have been less than two per cent of their turnover. But now as they align businesses to global needs, they are looking at IT solutions for an array of applications. SMBs are increasingly viewing IT as an essential strategic tool for their business instead of just another technology investment.

We have also recently announced the availability of our Dynamics Suite of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) applications as a subscription service, which allows businesses to use these solutions without the need to install it within the company's own premise on a pay as you go model. Microsoft believes that this new offering will allow a much larger set of SMBs in India to adopt and benefit from ERP services.

CIOL: Any new products in the pipeline targeted exclusively at the SMBs?

RM: Microsoft aims to bring the best of breed products to its consumers. In this regard we hope to bring out the next version of the Small Business Server in the next few months for our customers. We have also brought our ERP solutions as a hosted service especially for our SMB customers and hope to be able to make more of our solutions available as a hosted service in the near future.

CIOL: Elaborate on Microsoft's business strategies and expansion plans with regard to SMBs?

RM: Along with the innovative products that Microsoft brings to its customers, we are also constantly striving to look at ways in which we can best reach out to our customers. In this regard Microsoft has recently expanded its presence to five more cities and hoping to add one more.

The cities include Ahmedabad, Nagpur, Indore, Chandigarh and Kochi with Coimbatore being in the pipeline. With its direct presence, Microsoft will enable the SMBs in the region to easily access a complete portfolio of its products and services and enhanced support from both Microsoft and its partners.

Microsoft has launched a program called project VIKAS to help the Indian SME sector address its 'soft' challenges and gear up to effectively face global competition. It is hoped that this program will not only enhance efficiency and competitiveness, but make the job sector more vibrant and foster growth in the local software ecosystem.

We also have a small business portal www.merabusiness.com or Microsoft.com/India/SMB which offers latest information to consumers on the portfolio of products available for SMBs along with information on latest technology advice and IT adoption to assist consumers with business decisions and information on contact points of partners across the country.