Tech giant Microsoft on Wednesday announced it will commission three “hyper-scale” data centers in India before 2015 end.
“Microsoft has already started a private preview of these data centres with over 100 existing customers on board across different segments such as banking and financial institutions, government, manufacturing and start-ups,” said Microsoft India chairman Bhaskar Pramanik.
“They will be allowed to test it out over a three-month period. We will formally launch the services by the end of the calendar year,” Pramanik added.
He said Microsoft is looking to facilitate growth in sensitive sectors including the government and financial services sectors with its cloud services.
“If the government has to address 1.2 billion citizens then it needs hyper-scale data centres at an affordable cost, with technology and flexibility,” the Microsoft India chairman said.
He added that Microsoft has set up a number of initiatives around e-governance, education, last-mile access, the start-up ecosystems, smart cities and will continue to drive them going forward and that addition of local data centers will further catalyze growth in the country.
Pramanik revealed that the software giant is witnessing an annual growth of 105 percent in India for its cloud business and with the establishment of the local data centers he expects to change the market.
“In a sense, we will be the market maker and get the Indian clients to move more to the cloud at a faster pace,” he said.
Talking about the Windows 10 July 29 launch, Pramanik said, “If you think about the coming year, for us it is going to be about the cloud, and it is going to be about Windows10.”
In related news, Microsoft Ventures has inked a three-year partnership with the Indian School of Design and Innovation (ISDI) to set up a ‘ISDI Creative Accelerator’. This would be a pan-India initiative to facilitate technology startup ecosystem with design and innovation expertise. The first such accelerator will begin operations in Mumbai in August, with around a dozen start-ups initially, and be expanded across multiple Indian cities sometime later.
