• Investment World
• eWorld
• Brand Line
• Mentor
• Life
• Brand Quest
• The New Manager
• Smartbuy

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources
• In Focus
• In Depth
• Events 2007

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• The Hindu ePaper
• Business Line
• Business Line ePaper
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

P.V.Sivakumar

Mobile’s the thing.

V.Rishi Kumar

From start-up days, 10 summers ago, to a diversified research and development facility handling the entire chain of product development — concept, design, development and testing capabilities — it’s been an exciting journey for the Microsoft India Development Centre (MSIDC) in Hyderabad.

From a dozen hand-picked engineers, it now has over 1,500 people researching what the future holds for you and me.

It boasts of over 220 patents, and a clutch of products making a difference to the way we work in a technology-driven lifestyle, where PCs and mobile phones are becoming inseparable.

“The learning curve has not been that easy. We must admit that we did make some mistakes along the course. But what is significant is that the learning here would possibly help us handle things much faster in new centres such as Canada,” S. Somasegar, Vice-President, Developer Division, Microsoft, says.

At the event to mark the tenth year of the Centre, the company showcased innovation.

Capturing the flavour of the action is Srini Koppolu, Managing Director of MIDC. Recalling that Microsoft had passed through various stages, he says it is changing the entire developer ecosystem by offering projects online — making it a lot easier to collaborate.

Says Koppolu, “Now we have entered a phase where we can get more aggressive, handling lot more complexities, with an accent on local requirements.”

MIDC has established centres of excellence in mobility, networking and storage technologies. A demo centre at MIDC displayed some of the innovation that this centre has contributed. The products developed at MIDC include Data protection Manager 2007, Visual Studio for Devices, Jscript, Microsoft BizTalkRFID and Virtual PC 2007. These complement many shared projects handled by globally dispersed teams.

Data protection Manager is designed to protect Microsoft applications and the Windows Server System, helping create necessary back-ups as and when required. Visual Studio for devices provides the features and support that developers need, to come up with applications for Windows Mobile and Windows CE platforms.

The Microsoft RFID platform developed in Hyderabad has piloted several projects, including one on Susi (a fish delicacy) eaters.

The Microsoft Dynamics offers hosted customer relationship management for small and medium-sized businesses. It now has more than 800 clients using this facility.

Microsoft has identified mobile technologies as a major thrust area along with Windows Live search and Cloud computing services.

The Office Team has created products that simplify business applications offering services live for any device. The teams have developed Office Mobile, Office Live Services, MS Dynamics CRM and others.

Duet developed by MSIDC helps integrate SAP Data using Microsoft Office, thereby helping people access information with ease. All of the product development work and multiple versions have come out of here.

India and China are amongst the fastest growing economies. They have the potential to add a significant number of PCs and mobile phones. A whole generation will access the Web on their phones. Therefore, the focus is on innovation to help them access information with ease, Somasegar says.

“Unlike in the West, where about 50 per cent have data accounts, in India barely a fraction access data. Therefore, we need innovative solutions based on SMS, which is popular. Multi-lingual features too are being developed for easy access,” says Koppolu.

Microsoft has a range of diversified products that require training to use. These span professionals, enterprises and individual users. The MSIDC develops eLearning modules for users backed by certification programmes.

Watch the Hyderabad campus for more products driven by India-centric innovation, signs off Microsoft.

vrishi@thehindu.co.in

More Stories on : Software | Research & Development | Telecommunications

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line