MS expands reach in tier II cities

CHENNAI: With around two million small and medium business (SMB) entities in India, Microsoft Corporation has announced that it has successfully entered 30 cities, out of the total 33 tier II cities earmarked this year, to target the geographically dispersed SMB segment in India.

Microsoft Corporation small and mid market solutions and partners director Rajeev Mittal said, "Microsoft had announced its foray into 33 tier II cities in March 2005 and within a month, we have made our direct presence felt in 30 locations by the way of appointing Microsoft relationship managers. We would be further moving to other cities soon."

He further informed that Microsoft Relationship Managers would be assisting the partners present in the tier II cities in India by the way of identifying SMB customers for IT deployments as IT adoption is still in its growth stage.

"SMB segment has been identified as a high consumption segment for Microsoft's software products in future and with PC penetration on the increase. Microsoft hopes to grow in these areas through its varied business solutions, ERP, CRM products, exclusively designed for SMB segment", Mittal observed.

Further, quoting NASSCOM report, he said that NASSCOM, during 2004 projected that 10 percent -15 percent of the IT software spend in India came from the SMB segment and is expected to grow at the rate of 50 percent -60 percent by the end of 2008.

"With the opening up of the new economic era SMBs are facing global competition, which has forced them to have a re-look at their business. And being geographically spread, this group looks forward for solution providers, who would help them with software deployments, maintenance and other services," Mittal concluded.