In what could be the biggest push for public and hybrid cloud adoption in India, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on Tuesday announced that his company will offer Azure and Office 365 services from datacentres located within the country by end of 2015.
Addressing the press in what is his first visit to India after becoming CEO, Nadella said: “Microsoft is deeply committed to helping people and organisations thrive in our mobile-first and cloud first world.”
He said there was an incredible demand in the country for Microsoft cloud services. Moving Microsoft towards cloud-based services has been one of the thrust areas for Nadella since he took over.
Meanwhile, Microsoft India chairman Bhaskar Pramanik said the move will help make the vision for Digital India a reality.
He said this will present new possibilities in eGovernance , financial inclusion, healthcare and inclusion, impacting a billion lives.
The Microsoft officials did not clarify whether they would build their own data centres and in response to a query said they “build and lease data centre space around the world”.
Data sovereignty has been traditionally viewed as one of the biggest obstacles for governments and large companies in adopting cloud-based services and technologies. “Microsoft customers and partners in the country will benefit from data sovereignty, lower latency and geo redundancy with the availability of local infrastructure. Our locally available cloud services will open opportunities for banking, financial services and insurance companies, state-owned enterprises and government departments to adopt the public cloud,” Pramanik later said. The services offered via the local data centres will create new avenues for Microsoft India’s 10,000-plus partner ecosystem, comprised of hosters, independent software vendors, system integrators and others.