Microsoft's `Catch them young’ kickstarts in June

Ranjeet Rayen

BANGALORE: `Catch them young’ is the mantra for the government and the corporate alike. Leading from the front is the world’s largest software company Microsoft allocating Rs 100 crore for the Indian education segment. This was announced during the company’s chairman and chief architect second visit to India.

Three months after the single biggest financial contribution to the education segment from a corporate, Project named Shiksha, Microsoft is secretive about the engagements on this front. "We will be making a few announcements before June," said the company’s Indian operations designated managing director, Rajiv Kaul.

The government has been the cynosure of all eyes for companies like Microsoft, Acer, IBM, HP and Indian vendors alike. "India spend about 3.4 percent of its GDP on education every year," said an industry player. State governments are actively competing each other to provide its schools the best of computing.

Microsoft has revealed that it has been in advance talks with state governments like Kerala and Uttranchal and three other states whom they did not wish to name. It is working closely with the governments in preparing the curriculum.

It is also training the faculty and helping build the infrastructure in remote locations of the state. "Building infrastructure is not about having a few desktops in place. It is about laying out the plan for the executing the education material to the students. We have some short term, mid term and long term plans and will certainly come out and announce when we have achieved and set place these plans," added Kaul.

The hidden agenda for Microsoft is to take its technologies to students in its formative years of education. However it is not succeeding everywhere. Recently the Madhya Pradesh government had embarked in an ambitious project to computerize about 2000 odd schools across 45 districts in the state. But using Microsoft’s arch-rival Linux.

The government has employed an exclusive team to develop applications on Linux for its needs and sourcing the hardware from HP, Acer and PCS. "In Government sector, Linux is on the rise. The demand on machines with Linux OS is increasing for the sheer cost advantage," commented Arun Bhagat of Acer.

"Microsoft has long identified the education sector to be the foundation for any technological advancement. The spread of computer education is very important irrelevant of who is doing it," added Kaul. Although the break-up of the Rs 100 crore is not known, it is clearly visible that something is cooking and it is only a few months before Microsoft makes some announcements in their usual extravagant style.