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Mr Ravi Venkatesan

Vishwanath Kulkarni

Bangalore, Dec. 16 Microsoft said its sales in India have been impacted as large customers postpone their buying decisions in a slowing economy, but the software giant is confident of achieving the targeted billion dollar revenues by 2010.

“Our business is very much impacted. I don’t think anyone is immune to current market conditions,” said Mr Ravi Venkatesan, chairman, Microsoft India. “We see our customers going slow with their buying decisions in sectors starting IT and IT enabled services, banking, financial services and insurance,” he said.

The enterprise or large customers account for about three-fourth of Microsoft’s revenues in India. When asked whether the company would achieve the goal of billion dollars in revenues by 2010 in the current market conditions, Mr Venkatesan said “I think so. Probably it will be harder. We would have achieved it sooner”.

Microsoft is witnessing demand in pockets like telecom, and recession proof sectors such as healthcare, education and government, which currently account for less than a quarter of its earnings.

“Overall, we are relatively optimistic because 6.5 per cent GDP growth is better than what most countries have. India still doesn’t use much IT, so companies are going to invest regardless… at lower levels,” Mr Venkatesan said.

“Pickings were abundant in IT & ITES, BFSI and in big manufacturing. Now it’s the time to build new revenue engines,” Mr Venkatesan said adding the company was looking to strengthen its partner eco-system while focussing on newer business models such as cloud computing to take advantage of the adverse market conditions.

Mr Venkatesan expects the consumer segment will grow in recession well because it is small and emerging.

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