The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Microsoft to focus on products for developing nations

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Wednesday, Aug 13, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Microsoft to focus on products for developing nations

Special Correspondent

— PHOTO: P. V. SIVAKUMAR

Party time: MIDC employees celebrate the completion of 10 years of the company’s presence in Hyderabad on Tuesday.

HYDERABAD: Marking its decennial celebrations of its operations from here, Microsoft India Development Centre (MIDC), the largest Research and Development centre outside Redmond in USA, plans to focus on making computing accessible through mobile phones in the new and emerging markets.

Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, who inaugurated the third building of Microsoft that was meant exclusively for the IDC here on Tuesday, said that the Government’s proactive measures had given a fillip to the software companies to thrive in the city. He said that the State’s contribution to the country’s IT exports was eight per cent in 2003-04; while it went up to 15 per cent in the last four years.

Understanding people

S. Somasegar, senior vice-president, development division of Microsoft at its US headquarters, said the product development has been Redmond-centric. Now the company wanted to understand the needs of people in developing countries like India and develop products that fit into mobile phones.

This would bring the next billion users, who didn’t have access to a conventional PC, into the ambit of computer operations through mobile phones.

Some of the innovations by the IDC engineers had really touched millions of people across the globe, he said.

Corporate vice-president and managing director of MSIDC Srini Koppolu said that the company filed more than 220 patents in the last four years and was continuing to create intellectual property (IP).

He said that the IDC, which made a very humble beginning with just 20 people, had grown to employ 1,500 engineers with research bent of mind with an understanding on the requirements of the developing world.

Microsoft top-brass, including Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and Ray Ozzie (chief software architect) addressed the gathering through video.

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