Microsoft Brings Cloud Hosted Services To India
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella won over the hearts of Indian government and business moguls with his promise to bring Microsoft’s flagship cloud services into India. Azure and Office 365 are expected to be among the first cloud services being offered from within Indian data centers. The major hang-up in India regarding cloud services is that Indian officials are worried about Indian data being stored outside of the country. With Nadella’s assurances of cloud services being offered from within data centers located inside of 3 Indian cities, worries about data being hosted outside of India has largely been quashed.
Microsoft projects that they will begin offering full fledged cloud services in India by the end of 2015. At this time, Microsoft has not made it clear whether or not they plan on building out the data centers out of pocket or leasing data center space in existing facilities. Microsoft operates using both models around the world and given that Microsoft wants to assure that Indian data is safe, analysts speculate that Microsoft may end up building out the data centers from scratch.
Microsoft mentions that they have seen 100% increases in cloud revenue from India. Being able to offer Azure based in India will only accelerate the pace of Microsoft’s cloud service business within India. Telecoms, banks, academic institutions, government and entrepreneurs are enthusiastic about the new announcement. Just like most Microsoft cloud services, its possible that India can expect a limited preview of cloud services being beta tested in their country.
The times of India quotes Nadella as saying, “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.” Nadella continues by mentioning, “With more than 250 million Indians using internet-connected devices today, there is incredible demand and opportunity for India with Microsoft’s cloud services.”
