Skip to main content

How Microsoft Azure lost the first mover Advantage in the India Market.

In 2010 Microsoft launched Azure in India and I was lucky to get standing place in the Taj Lands End, Mumbai at the launch. The hall was packed and overflowing and it was more like a rock concert than an IT event there were more then 500 people at the Azure launch.
About a year later Microsoft India is still getting their act right, I wonder what went wrong it was surely not the marketing team because Microsoft India always had a wonderful sales team.
This is my perspective on how Microsoft Azure lost the first mover advantage in the India Market.
For one Microsoft did not offer the service in Indian Rupees, so it was difficult for someone to pay in US
Dollars for services in India.
Two Microsoft India did give free Azure to students/technology adopters, but they needed to log in their international credit card details so that they could be billed if they exceeded the allotted quota. Most Indians  do not possess international credit cards in India so it was a non starter.
Three Microsoft India did not advertise or publicize their cloud offerings adequately, though Mr. Steve Ballmer had identified Indian as the biggest market for cloud computing.
Fourth Microsoft India had no scheme where existing users could surrender their Microsoft licences and get some credit for moving into Azure, rather they had one sales team selling licences and another selling Azure.
So the Azure team had a challenge in selling to accounts where the licence selling sales team already had a strong relationship with the client.
Lastly Microsoft allowed many Indian data hosting operators to host Microsoft services and they started selling them as cloud service, which in most cases did not confirm to the NIST definition of the Cloud.
Recently I figured that the whole team had been revamped and Microsoft India is making a second attempt to bring Azure services to India, I wish this team all the best.
Maybe this time around they will finally connect to Indian business and make them move their applications to Azure.
I would love to hear from the readers of this blog what else Microsoft India could have done better to make Azure a success in India.

Comments

  1. Unknown1:06 PM

    Subbu, very well said. I agree to your thought.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Cloud Hosting India2:40 AM

    Awesome... I really love the way you write your article here... And also it shows facts which I like. Thanks for sharing this.

    cloud hosting india

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

SMAC and the Transformation of Customer Service & Dialogue

"SMAC" is the a acronym for Social, mobile, analytics & cloud the four pillars of the fifth wave of technology as defined by  Cognizant Technology the  Teaneck, New Jersey headquartered ITES company (NASDAQ Symbol : CTSH). SMAC will change the customer dialogue by leveraging on the collective strength of the Social Media Network, Mobile devices, Analytics driven by Big Data solutions and Cloud Computing as the underlying backbone of affordable and reliable engine for computation.  Let us look at each of these components and their impact on our lives today: 1. Social Media - The Social Media has seen breakneck growth and significant valuation with the winners, we have the four undisputed leaders in this segment Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest  & LinkedIn with competition from Yahoo, Google and Microsoft and another hundred more social media sites of different hues and aspirations.   2. Mobility - The way we handle and process information an...
2 comments
Read more

Top 10 Changes in the Workplace - Impact of COVID-19

A lot has been said about what’s happening with the impact of Covid, on the workplace. Many of these are hard to imagine and some will require serious consideration. Nevertheless, my 20 years plus background in IT, Operations and Consulting across BCP, Security, Projects and Leadership makes me believe the following are what we can be looking forward to (at varying levels) over the next couple of years. Please leave a comment and I would love to hear your thoughts and comments too! 1.        Disinfection Chambers -  You would have to walk into the office through disinfection chambers, entry into the chamber would be post facial and iris recognition for 2 factor biometric contactless authentication.  You could then be tested   for Covid by a nurse through the use of a rapid test kit (Emirates Airline has already deployed the same for airline passengers), there would be a ten minute wait time for the results before you are let into t...
Post a Comment
Read more

25 Years of Teletext and the India Teletext Project

Photo Credit - Theo Priestly (https://www.linkedin.com/in/theopriestley/) A post in LinkedIn on 25 years of teletext reminded me of the implementation of the teletext project in India in the early 1990's .  My first introduction to teletext was in the United Kingdom in 1990 where I learnt the finer points of horse racing in the teletext feed, it was interesting information and available with a click on the TV remote. I returned to India in 1991 and was hired as a member of the OTCEI  (Over the Counter Exchange of India) team to build India's first national fully automated stock exchange  created on the lines of NASDAQ USA.  We successfully  launched the exchange but needed a solution for  price dissemination to smaller cities. The Satellite Antenna for teletext in Mumbai (LtoR) Sudesh Puthran, author, Late R. Ravimohan, Sandeep Bagalkar & Karthik Shah   There was only one vendor for equity price dissemination those days, it ...
Post a Comment
Read more