While Microsoft Corp is gung-ho about the devices business and its Windows-based mobile ecosystem, the company is also working on a lot of enterprise solutions.

In India, it is focussed on areas such as cloud, digitisation and education content to stay ahead in the market. The company on Tuesday announced that it is ending support for its popular Windows XP on April 8In an interview with Business Line , Karan Bajwa, Managing Director, Microsoft India, talks about the company’s business strategy for India. Edited excerpts: -

How has been the shift to Windows 7/8? What about your communication strategy and costs involved?

There are many customers (from large enterprises) who had already bought Windows 7/8 from a licensing standpoint, but deployed XP for application compatibility or (due to) other reasons. Therefore, if they need to go back to Windows 7/8, they do not need to pay Microsoft any money.

Many users will also buy new PCs (personal computers) and they will buy the software as a part of it. Such customers will not pay directly. They will have to buy the software afresh. So, it’s not purely for revenues.

We are working with customers to integrate their applications with Windows 7/8 and also working with original equipment manufacturers (PC makers) to spread the message.

What about on piracy of such software?

Piracy in large enterprises is not really prominent. We don’t have huge piracy concern there…the issue is about migration from XP to new Windows.

What’s your strategy this year on products like Azure, Office 365?

We are in line with the global strategy of transforming ourselves as a devices and services company.

We are driving a campaign in the country to proliferate more devices – across PCs, tablets and phones. In services, cloud computing is the lead conversation for us, both from Office 365 productivity and Azure. We are leading with cloud and we are seeing encouraging responses from the marketplace.

What are your plans on devices? Is there any plan with the local partners?

The intention is to succeed in the device market. Pricing is just one part of (our strategy). Success in PCs, tablets and smartphones is our future and we will use everything that we have in our arsenal to succeed. We are committed to a lot of global partners here who are engaging with 8 to 10-inch tablets and we have developed a robust set of apps to work on such tablets – in gaming, entertainment, education and news.

What works are being carried out on the digitisation space?

We are working with a lot of companies. Recently, we announced a project – special bundled tablets for private schools (K6-12) – in partnership with Acer, MBD Group and Tata Teleservices. This was to pre-digitise the education contents in partnerships with hardware and services providers. We are working with other manufacturers such as Hewlett Packard and Dell as well.

How do you look at the Windows phones market in India?

Windows phones have the second largest market share now and we will continue work on that front.

With Nokia, we are on-track for the quarter one closure and then only can share something. Till then, Microsoft and Nokia are functioning as different companies or entities.

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