“Office 365 is on track to be one of the fastest growing products in our history”, says Manisha Ajay Sood, Microsoft

Manisha Ajay Sood, director, SMB, Microsoft India talks about the latest products

 

Can you please delineate Microsoft's overall roadmap in India in the next 6-12 months? What are the main initiatives planned?
We are truly breaking through this year, as a devices and services company. Our opportunity is clear - and it has never been greater. Going forward, our strategy will focus on creating a family of devices and services for individuals and businesses that empower people at home, at work and on the go, for the activities they value most.

Microsoft is and always has been a company that has fully invested in its partner ecosystem. Partners will be a key to Microsoft's success, as the company is moving from software to a devices and services company. We are adopted a 3C approach for our partner community - capacity, capability and commitment, to help them adopt new technologies like Cloud solutions, thereby adding value to their business from a long term perspective.

We are working with our partners in the length and breadth of the country through our geo-expansion program to create a real impact on the SMB ecosystem, which in turn adds to the country's economic growth.

Microsoft has BOSS--the Book of Small Business Solutions that is supposed to plan the technology roadmap for SMBs. Can you elaborate on how Microsoft does the handholding with these SMBs. i.e. in terms of strategic consulting in terms of technology what all are you offering?
Microsoft is moving closer to the SMBs with its presence in 250 cities in India through its hub and spoke model.We continue to focus and invest in customized solutions for SMBs, catering to various sectors so that they can be autonomous as they are an important frontier of growth for our industry.Office 365, Windows Intune, Windows Azure and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online are Microsoft's most complete cloud services to date. They provide small businesses with access to powerful applications from anywhere and on multiple devices with both privacy and security features built into each solution.

We will continue to support our partners with the right set of tools and resources to sell the latest Microsoft technologies, drive more sales, and thereby keeping the SMB customers happy.

Please elaborate on the uptake of Office 365 amongst SMBs in India. How many adoptions are happening as Fully Packaged Product directly from Microsoft and how many have been done through authorized partners and Airtel syndication channel?
Office 365 is on track to be one of the fastest growing products in our history. We have signed thousands of SMB subscribers already. India offers a very big opportunity and we are very bullish about it. There are significant number of small businesses in India, many of whom are just beginning to get their first PCs and first broadband connections. So, it is an untapped opportunity.

We are getting a host of endorsements from Office 365 customers (see below) through the Airtel syndication channel:

 "We chose Office 365 due to enterprise readiness, robust security and ability to choose and select Exchange plans for my users basis their usage and thus lower TCO," said K. Giri, manager IT Operations, Ad2pro Media Services.

 "Our business operates out of multiple locations and we need data access at any given point of time even when we are not at desk. Our requirement was to have a cloud storage space. Microsoft 365 was chosen as the comfort level of working on Microsoft products is higher and we could sync better with our regular operations. Reliability and data security is higher with Microsoft," said S. Sridhar, chief manager, Clifton Trends. 

 "We are using Microsoft 365 and extremely satisfied with all products from Microsoft. There is hardly any flaw that you find in any product that they come out with. Which also means they do extensive R&D before launching any new product," said AnoopGarg, director, Market and Markets.

Within SMBs, what sort of verticals you are seeing with maximum traction? Can you share some customer wins in these verticals?
In the tier II and III cities, Microsoft has been witnessing enhanced reception from sectors like: Healthcare, Higher Education, IT Services, Public Administration & Cooperative Banking.

Clearly there is strong appetite in the market, even among the smallest businesses, to get powerful productivity and collaboration tools. Adoption is not only strong among enterprise customers with companies like Lupin Limited, Godrej Group, FICCI, Visaka Industries, SIRO Clinpharmbut a majority of customers are small to medium sized businesses with less than 1,000 employees.

What are the profile of partners for Microsoft's SMBs in India? What are the criteria you follow for selecting these partners? How many of them are active, i.e. you are billing them regularly?
There are large partners who focus on deals with enterprises that are in technical domain and we have value added re-sellers who go out and sell to SMBs. We are a partner-centric organization and there are almost 10,000 partners in our ecosystem in India. As part of our geo-expansion program, 4,500 of them have gone into 250 cities (including tier-II and III) to explain the power of technology, show what it can do and ultimately get adopted by them to use it for their own business success. We will grow our partnerships and go into more and more cities.

What are the different pricing models available for SMBs in India for adoption of Office 365?
The following are the pricing models for SMBs in India Office365 Small Business: `300 user/month or `3,600 annually (upto 25 users)
Office365 Small Business Premium `750 user/month or `9,000 annually (upto 25 users)
Office365 Midsize Business `900 user/month (on annual commitment for upto 300 users)

What are the various channel incentives and schemes that Microsoft offers for its partners who are catering to SMBs?
Microsoft is the only company equipped to help partners offer their customers a suite of on-premises and cloud solutions in both public and private cloud environments. Some of the Cloud programs include:

 Cloud Essential Program - Basic enrollment for partners to start selling Cloud and earn incentives

 Cloud Accelerate Program - Partners engage in multiple cloud deals, thereby become eligible for accelerated incentives

What has been the uptake of Windows 8 amongst SMBs? What are the role played by the Windows 8 partners? Does Microsoft have combo offerings for Windows 8 and Office 365 both for SMB customers as well partners?
Windows 8 was introduced to offer modern computing experience to businesses and to help professionals stay connected to their colleagues and clients from anywhere, anytime. Windows 8.1 advances this vision and introduces new manageability, mobility, security, user experience and networking capabilities-with the goal of offering customers the best business tablets and versatile modern business PCs driven by the most powerful operating system designed for today's modern businesses.

Windows 8 has seen positive uptake amongst both SMBs and enterprises:

 Windows 8 has sold more than 100 million licenses till date

 Windows 8 has also inspired new devices as the number of certified systems for Windows 8 and Windows RT has tripled to 2400

 Apps momentum has been steady as the number of apps in the Windows Store increased to 100,000 apps since the launch, with over 250 million Store apps downloaded

Can you elaborate on the uptake of Azure amongst SMBs in India? What is the level of involvement of partners for Azure?
Windows Azure is popular among Indian SMBs due to various benefits it offers. Depending on the scale, companies can save upto 30% - 40% of operational cost as there is no physical infrastructure required, the auto-scaling feature enable customers to scale-up/scale-down the storage capacity in short span of time and as per requirement.

Recently, Microsoft has also announced an attractive ‘per-minute-billing' for leveraging Windows Azure services.