Bangalore: He took over as managing director of Microsoft India Pvt. Ltd (MIPL) three months ago, moving from hardware maker Dell India Pvt. Ltd, where he was country manager. Rajan Anandan says the transition was smooth. “If the Dell stint was all about getting market share, the current (work at Microsoft) is all about creating new markets, which is fundamentally a different thing.”
Confident steps: Anandan says his No. 1 challenge is to ensure that all Microsoft technologies are brought to the Indian market at warp speed. Hemant Mishra / Mint
In India, Microsoft has five divisions—MIPL which sells to the India market, an India development centre based in Hyderabad which does applied research and development, an offshore software development arm, a global technology support office and a pure research wing, Microsoft Research India. Together, the five employ around 5,000 people. While Microsoft doesn’t provide country-specific revenues, trade magazine
Dataquest estimates Microsoft’s Indian revenue at Rs3,263 crore in 2007-08, with 90% of it coming from the domestic market and the rest from software exports.
While Microsoft is primarily identified through its popular Windows and Office software, Anandan wants the company to be known as a key enterprise player too.
“We have very strong offerings in Business Intelligence, ERP (enterprise resource planning), CRM (customer relationship management), HPC (high performance computing), unified communication, mobile software, search, virtualization and related areas,” says Anandan. While Windows Vista and Office packaged software are ubiquitous, piracy which is at 69%, remains a key challenge, he adds.
In a wide-ranging interview, among the first since he took over, Anandan talks about his plans to reposition Microsoft more as an enterprise company in India. Edited excerpts:
Could you give us an overview of where MIPL’s operations are in India?
We have a very good market position in India. Over the last four-five years business has grown dramatically…by an order of magnitude, though we don’t disclose country specific (revenue) numbers.
The current (tough) market conditions present us an interesting set of opportunities and challenges. Our fiscal year runs from July to June. So, we are in our second quarter. Our first quarter was terrific. Growth in the second quarter has obviously slowed down. This is already being seen in the case of hardware players. Software tends to lag a bit, but clearly the impact will be felt.
However, there are certain segments, where unlike say an auto sector or real estate, the growth story continues albeit at a slower pace. We are focused on those segments.
And those segments are…
We see enormous growth potential in Central and state governments. The (IT) mission projects and the e-governance frameworks which have been announced are billions of dollars in spend.