Microsoft has saved 50 percent of its travel budget by using UC

An interview with Rajan Anandan, managing director, Microsoft India

 

In a market which saw new technology hardware spends drop from +20 percent to -20 percent, Microsoft India has been able carve out some new niches. These include expansion in newer markets and selling the right technology at the right time, that is, a strong focus on systems that help cut costs. The company is also holding one of it's biggest events, Tech Ed India 2009, at Hyderabad from May 13-15 in association with The Economic Times. Excerpts:

 

What will be the focus of Tech Ed 2009?

 

Tech Ed-India 2009 is all about getting yourself ready for the next wave of technology innovations and trends. The keynote will be addressed by our global CEO Steve Ballmer and we expect over 5,000 visitors. The forum will help people stay ahead of the curve by making them aware of new technologies from cloud computing to virtualization. We will also be talking about many new products, as this year will be one of the biggest product launch year for Microsoft, in terms of number of new products launched.

 

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What is Microsoft's India strategy?

 

India is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. If you look at IT penetration per household in India, it is one of the lowest in the world. We get very excited by that. It shows that the market should be enormous. We also look at piracy. It's 69 percent in India. The value of reducing piracy by 1 percent will actually move EPS at Microsoft globally! Piracy has dropped 5 percent points in the last three years. It's coming down by 1-1.5 percent per year. Our strategy is to ensure that we are trusted advisors to CEOs, CIOs and CFOs and make sure we deliver business solutions that can bring significant RoI to them. We are also increasing our footprint to tap new markets — from 30 cities in India about eight months back we have expanded to 200 cities as 60 percent of new hardware units shipped are outside the top 30 cities.

 

Source: The Economic Times