Satya Nadella rolls India-led Cloud Svcs

NEW DELHI, INDIA: In his first visit to India as Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella  announced that Microsoft will offer commercial cloud services - Azure and Office 365, from local datacenters by the end of 2015.

This is expected to accelerate public and hybrid cloud adoption significantly in India. Organizations in the country will benefit from data sovereignty, lower latency and geo redundancy with the availability of local infrastructure.

“Microsoft is deeply committed to helping people and organizations thrive in our mobile-first and cloud-first world - that’s why we are proud to offer our commercial cloud services through datacenters in India,” said Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft.

“By offering our cloud services through local datacenters, we can help make Digital India a reality,” said Bhaskar Pramanik, Chairman, Microsoft India. “This opens new possibilities in e-governance, financial inclusion, healthcare and education, and will help us positively impact the lives of a billion people.”

Microsoft’s cloud services in India have grown over 100 per cent in revenue in the past year, and the commitment to offer locally hosted Microsoft Azure and Office 365 will further accelerate this, an announcement shared.

Several key customers such as Bajaj Finance, Fortis Hospitals and FCB/ULKA are said to be already benefiting from their adoption of Microsoft’s cloud technologies. “Microsoft is uniquely positioned to address the growing IT requirements of the finance industry for both productivity and platform solutions. We, at Bajaj Finance Ltd, have experienced the quality of Microsoft Cloud services first hand and are quite happy about them. The breadth of Microsoft Cloud solutions - from on premise private cloud to public and hybrid clouds - makes a comprehensive offering for financial services customers”, said Rakesh Bhatt, COO, Bajaj Finance Limited.