Microsoft to set up second Asian research facility in India
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Microsoft announced it would set up its second Asian research facility in India's technology hub of Bangalore.
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Microsoft on Tuesday announced its decision to localise Windows and Office software in 14 Indian languages over the next 12 months and that the company would hire &#39;hundreds&#39; in India this year.
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Microsoft is expanding its experimental Windows XP Starter Edition program to India, the company disclosed on Wednesday. It&#39;s the second such announcement from Microsoft this week.
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Microsoft Corp., the world&#39;s largest software maker, will hire ``several hundred&#39;&#39; people in the next year at its development center in India, expanding its workforce of 800, Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft plans to start testing a new education PC called IQ PC and an education channel on its MSN portal in India next month. The India launch of the IQ PC and education channel will be the first worldwide. It is part of Microsoft's "Unlimited Potential" program, which aims to use technology to increase the reach of education, said a spokeswoman for Microsoft India on Wednesday. Microsoft ChairmanÂ Bill Gates announcedÂ the Unlimited Potential program in April. The new education PC, which is a combination of online and offline content, is likely to be priced at about Indian Rupees 21,000 ($513). It runs on a Advanced Micro DevicesÂ (AMD) processor, and comes bundled with software from both Microsoft and local partners offering educational software. Microsoft also announced Wednesday the launch of the MSN IQ Beta Education Channel, which will be a repository of educational and "edutainment" content. Students will have access online to curriculum, tutoring, competitive exam coaching, entertainment, references and counseling, the company said. Students will be able to access the education channel through the IQ PC and from shared PCs at Internet cafes, the spokeswoman said. Microsoft has partnered with Indian PC makers Zenith Computers of Mumbai and Wipro of Bangalore. Selecting AMD as a partner for the pilot program was only coincidental and Microsoft is also working with Intel Corp. on other similar initiatives, the spokeswoman said. "There is a lot more coming in this area from Microsoft," the spokeswoman said. For example, the company has already trained over 100,000 teachers in India on using computers in education through its Project Shiksha, she said. Microsoft Research in Bangalore is also working on technologies that will make computers more accessible and affordable to students, and has developed a technology called MultiPoint that allows several computer mice to be used with a PC simultaneously. This technology is targeted at schools in India and other countries that cannot afford to give each student a PC. The concept of the IQ PC has been researched extensively by Microsoft, but the company plans to run test programs of the PC and the MSN Education Channel first in Bangalore and Pune, the spokeswoman said. The country-wide roll out will be in November. "Our focus is on making IT accessible, and affordable, and also relevant by offering content and services relevant to the local requirements," the spokeswoman said. The IQ PC is not cheap by Indian standards. A number of entry-level PCs are less expensive. However, Microsoft holds that the price will be attractive because of the software, Internet connectivity and other tools and services bundled with the product.
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Text of report by Indian newspaper The Asian Age website on 2 February  [Unattributed report: "ISRO Plans Second Satellite Recovery"]  Chennai, Feb.
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Microsoft has trained 200,000 teachers in India on the use of computers, ahead of its original target to train 80,000 teachers in the country during the five-year period ending December this year, it said.The company introduced the program, called project Shiksha, in 2003 with the objective of&#160;raising the computer literacy of Indian teachers and students&#160;in government-run schools. The 200,000 teachers trained so far have in turn trained about 10 million students, a spokeswoman for Microsoft India said on Monday.The moves by Microsoft to offer free or subsidized software in India have however come in for criticism from the Free Software Foundation, which compared Microsoft&#39;s philanthropy to that of a cigarette manufacturer handing out free samples of cigarettes to students.The communist-run state of Kerala in south India is actively&#160;promoting open-source software&#160;in schools, but most other states and the federal government are beneficiaries of Microsoft&#39;s programs.Microsoft works with state governments to help teachers use its technology in school administrations and also to include it in their curriculum and teaching methods, she said. While the state governments provide the classrooms, Microsoft provides the hardware and software, and a team of trainers for the teachers.Although the company has reached its training target, it&#39;s not stopping the program yet. It did not say how many more teachers and students it plans to cover under the program, though.The company has introduced low-cost, starter editions of its Vista operating system, as well as local language versions of its Office suite to target both the academic and e-governance markets.&#160;
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Microsoft Corp. will distribute free software to nonprofit groups to boost charity in India, a company official said Monday.
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(InfoWorld) - IBM Corp. has set up a new application services facility in India's north-eastern state of West Bengal, in a city that has emerged as one of the country's key software and services hubs. The new facility is in Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal, and is equipped to have about 3,000 staff, a spokeswoman for IBM India said. She could not give a timeframe for the expansion. Kolkata has emerged as a center for IT services because of the surprisingly business-friendly policies of West Bengal's communist government. A number of multinational companies and Indian outsourcers, with bases in Bangalore, Mumbai or Delhi, have expanded to Kolkata in a bid to tap new pools of talent. IBM already has three other delivery centers in the city, and it's home to IBMâs second-largest pool of employees in India after Bangalore. The Armonk, New York, company announced in June that it isÂ investing $6 billion in IndiaÂ over the next three years. It's part of IBM's strategy to grow its presence inÂ emerging markets such as China and Brazil, because they offer vast pools of staff and also because they are attractive markets themselves. IBM had about 43,000 staff in India as of June. It has hired more staff since then for its software and business process outsourcing (BPO) operations in India, according to industry sources.
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India News, Hyderabad, World&#39;s largest software maker Microsoft Corp is hiring more staff at its new India campus - its largest outside the US - near here, the company&#39;s chief executive Steve Ballmer said Monday.
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US-based Microsoft Corp will introduce a low-cost version of its Windows XP operating system in India in early 2005 in a bid to capture a market of millions of households.
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Manikonda Jagir (Ranga Reddy, AP): Microsoft India Campus, the new facility coming up at Manikonda Jagir near Hyderabad as an extension to Microsoft Corporation&#39;s commitment of $400-million of investment in India, would focus on developing high-end
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Microsoft Corp. said Monday that it will continue to expand its software development operations in India as it opened a new campus near Hyderabad.
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Microsoft Research plans to establish its first-ever lab in India, hoping to attract top research talent in a country known for producing high-quality computer scientists.
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Microsoft and South Korean telecommunications operator KT Corp. are considering plans to establish a joint research and business development center in South Korea, the two companies said Wednesday.
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Software giant Microsoft Corp. signed software partnerships Monday with India's leading outsourcing firms, Infosys Technologies Ltd. and Wipro Ltd., and stepped up plans to hire more programmers in India.
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Software giant Microsoft Corp.   is setting up a research and development center in  Shanghai for its online MSN service, its first such center  outside the United States, sources familiar with the plan said  on Wednesday.