What has impressed Microsoft's Satya Nadella about India?

When large corporations look at expanding their operations in India, it is obvious that they will align their business decisions in tandem with the major policy drives of the government of the day.

At “Future Decoded”, Microsoft’s annual flagship technology and business conference held in Mumbai on February 21-22, CEO Satya Nadella had a few new offerings to announce, and they were in sync with some of the pet catch phrases of the current government.

The overarching theme, not surprisingly, was digitalisation of the economy, which the government had been emphasising on, after it decided to demonetise high value currency in November. Nadella had a word of praise for companies that have been increasingly utilising cloud computing to improve their operations.

Be it an entrepreneur using data to reshape diagnostic capabilities, or a tea company in the small scale sector that uses the cloud for procurement that could have otherwise involved a lot of paperwork that took weeks, or auto firms where the business model is witnessing a change and their gross margins are improving because of the cloud, the change is discernible.

But what impressed Nadella more were the changes taking place in the government, and states such as Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra leveraging technology to improve the lives of those in the villages. Microsoft, for instance, is using TV white spaces technology (the unused broadcasting frequencies in the wireless spectrum) to provide internet to 32 rural villages in Maharashtra.

The other aspect he touched upon was the jobs scenario in India. Of course, the jobs crunch has been the biggest concern for the present central government, after having promised 250 million jobs in 10 years.

However, job opportunities have not kept pace with the promise, due to the continuing slump in new manufacturing investments, the challenges for Indian IT companies abroad that is forcing them to trim staff, and the increasing level of high-end technology applications that is helping companies do more with less people in both these sectors.

Nadella wanted to use LinkedIn, which has 39 million users in India, to create products that will help job seekers identify jobs that suit their education and skill profile. Apart from launching placement apps for college graduates, it will launch Project Sangam, a cloud-based initiative to help Indians skill themselves.

Last but not the least, Nadella raised a toast to the idea of Make in India, by announcing Skype Lite, an optimised version of Skype, which the company said was “Made for India” at its Hyderabad centre.

Why Made for India?

Because the app will provide better experience for video and audio calling service, even at low connection speeds of 3G and 2G, a challenge internet users face in India.

(courtesy: Mail Today)

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