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Nadella enthused by startup culture
Microsoft chief Satya Nadella on Thursday announced that the tech giant will fund hundreds of new generation entrepreneurs in India\'s \'smart cities\' space and is overwhelmed by the start-up culture in the country, especially in e-commerce.
Ropes in PayTm, Justdial, Snapdeal for its cloud offering
Mumbai : Microsoft chief Satya Nadella on Thursday announced that the tech giant will fund hundreds of new generation entrepreneurs in India's 'smart cities' space and is overwhelmed by the start-up culture in the country, especially in e-commerce.
Delivering keynote address at 'Future Unleashed: Accelerating India,' which is Microsoft's largest ever customer conference in the country, Hyderabad-born Nadella also announced new partnerships with e-commerce leaders such as Justdial, PayTm and Snapdeal.
Under the partnership, Microsoft will offer a special cloud initiative for start-ups aligned to smart cities, and make available its flagship devices such as the Microsoft Lumia 950 and 950 XL, and also Microsoft Surface Pro 4, which is its flagship computing device, in December and January, respectively.
Unveiling the new cloud start-up initiative to empower the smart cities, Nadella said its one-year cloud offering in the country, which is the first kind from a multinational corporation, the company will work closely with Justdial, PayTm and Snapdeal to help others develop solutions suitable for smart cities, apart from farming, healthcare and education.
"At Microsoft, we strive to empower every Indian citizen and every business and government organisation to achieve more. With our cloud and with Surface Pro 4 offerings, our customers here have the digital technology they need to seize incredible new growth and opportunity on a global scale," said Nadella.
He said he is extremely impressed with the adoption level of cloud computing in the country since it opened three data centres in Pune, Mumbai and Chennai 12 months ago. On the funding, Microsoft will provide individual fundings worth $120,000 or Rs 80 lakh worth of Azure computing so that these entrepreneurs can explore solutions and run smart city digital pilots.
This initiative is anticipated to impact over 50 smart cities in the next year through a catalogue of over 50 start-ups and ISV solutions, Microsoft said. Nadella added that already the company has been running two pilots in Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh since the past few months.
The broad-ranging agreements with JustDial, PayTm and Snapdeal will see Microsoft partnering these ecommerce leaders in creating new marketplaces, new services and new experiences for their customers. PayTm will also use Office 365 for their merchants' inventory and account management.
It will also facilitate and support Microsoft service sales via their merchant network. Snapdeal will work with Microsoft cloud platforms to create a digital automotive dealership that is expected to change the way customers make automotive buying decisions.
