OpenAl–Apple Deal Speculations and Risks Associated With Potential Collaboration

There have been reports that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has expressed concerns about a deal between OpenAI and Apple. The deal reportedly involves OpenAI's AI technology being incorporated into Apple's products, potentially including the iPhone as part of the upcoming iOS 18 update. This has raised questions about the impact on Microsoft's products and services, which also utilize AI capabilities heavily. It's worth noting that Microsoft is a significant investor in OpenAI, and such a deal could influence the dynamics between these tech giants.

According to a report by the Information, Satya Nadella recently met with Sam Altman to discuss this apparent deal of OpenAI with Apple.

The meeting between Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had discussions involving OpenAI and Apple. The deal could potentially affect Microsoft's interests given their investment in OpenAI. This development is particularly noteworthy as it could shift the dynamics of the AI market and influence the future of AI integration in consumer technology.

However, it is to be noted that considering Microsoft's stake in OpenAl's for-profit entity, Microsoft will also earn part of the revenue from potential Apple-OpenAl deal.

Amid the reports and speculations about what OpenAI–Apple deal is all about including the one that OpenAI will integrate in Apple products including Siri, which is different from Google Gemini as well as OpenAI's ChatGPT, it is to be noted however that researchers at Apple have already revealed new Al system called ReALM (Reference Resolution As Language Modeling). So, what is this deal between Apple and OpenAI about is remained a question or it could just be a media exaggeration. 

Interestingly, Apple researchers even claimed claim that the larger models of ReALM outperform GPT-4. Besides, there have been reports that claims that Apple has developed 8 LLMs that run locally on iPhones, which will handle most user queries.

Risks

The potential collaboration between OpenAI and Apple to integrate AI technology into Apple's products, such as the iPhone, does come with several challenges and risks. OpenAI must navigate the ethical implications of deploying powerful AI in consumer products. This includes addressing issues related to safety, security, and potential biases within the AI models.

For Apple, the challenge lies in balancing its traditional walled-garden approach with the need for greater collaboration to leverage OpenAI's technology effectively. There's a risk that this partnership could disrupt the current dynamics between major tech companies, especially considering Microsoft's significant investment in OpenAI.

While the deal could open up new revenue streams for Apple, it's crucial to manage these effectively to avoid potential conflicts with existing partnerships and business models. To recall, the iPhone maker is reportedly also in talks to use Google Gemini.

Moreover, integrating OpenAI's AI into Apple's ecosystem, such as upgrading Siri, requires careful consideration to ensure seamless user experience and maintain Apple's high standards for product quality.

With AI technology becoming more pervasive, ensuring user privacy and data protection is paramount. Both companies will need to address these concerns transparently.

Adding to these possible risks, the collaboration could also increase competition among big tech players, potentially leading to a race in AI advancements that may prioritize speed over thorough vetting of AI applications.

These challenges underscore the importance of a thoughtful approach to integrating AI technology into consumer products, ensuring that ethical, strategic, and market considerations are addressed.

Satya Nadella Highlights Key Role of India’s Developer Community in Global AI Innovation

Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella, on Thursday, highlighted the pivotal role of India’s developer community in building cutting-edge products and solutions that solve challenges for the nation and can be deployed around the world.

During his address to 1,100 developers and technology leaders at the Microsoft AI Tour in Bengaluru today, Nadella spoke about the impact Indian developers are making in accelerating AI innovation globally.

India is the fastest-growing market on GitHub, a Microsoft-owned software collaboration and innovation platform, with 13.2 million developers using the platform. It is expected to overtake the US as the largest developer community on GitHub by 2027. India also has the second-highest number of generative AI projects on GitHub after the United States.

“This next generation of AI is changing how and what developers build everywhere, including in India,” said Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO, Microsoft. “It’s fantastic to see how India’s developer community is applying our technology and tools to build the future for India and the world.”

Nadella also said that Microsoft will expand its Code; Without Barriers program to India this month, as the company aims to democratize access to tech skills nationwide. The program was launched in 2021 across nine Asia Pacific (APAC) countries to help close the gender gap in the region’s fast-growing cloud, AI, and digital technology sectors. The program provides support, training, and networking opportunities for female developers and coders, and those in other technical roles to contribute to inclusive economic growth, encourage innovation, and reflect the region’s social makeup. Through Code; Without Barriers, Microsoft will provide skilling and certification to 75,000 women developers in India in 2024.

The Code; Without Barriers expansion builds on other recent developer and skilling initiatives by Microsoft in India.

On Wednesday, Nadella announced Microsoft’s new skilling investment in India to empower people and organizations to thrive in the AI era. The investment will see Microsoft provide 2 million people in India with AI skilling opportunities by 2025 through its ADVANTA(I)GE INDIA initiative.

In early last month, Microsoft enabled 100,000 developers to advance their careers in AI through its AI Odyssey initiative. The initiative allowed participants to take the first step towards becoming a subject matter expert in AI by learning new skills and earning Microsoft credentials. Microsoft is expanding the AI Odyssey program to other Asian countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Indonesia, Korea, China, Vietnam, and Thailand, after receiving an overwhelming response from India. The program will also welcome Indian developers who could not participate in the AI Odyssey challenge in January 2024. Phase 2 of the AI Odyssey will run from February 8th, 2024, to June 25th, 2024, aiming to reach another 150,000 developers across Asia.

In November 2022, Microsoft India launched the Azure Society of Excellence (ASE) in collaboration with premier technology institutes like IITs, IIMs and BITS Pilani to work with startups and their incubation cells. The exclusive program provides technological support and mentorship to startups, helping them to become future-ready. Microsoft has successfully onboarded over 1700 Indian startups to the Microsoft Founders Hub through the ASE. It has also signed memorandums of understanding with 10 leading incubators across Indian technology and management institutes.

Microsoft India engages with a community of 2 million professional and student developers across 100 cities in India to help them acquire skills and prepare for jobs. This is done with the help of community leaders, Microsoft Valuable professionals (MVP’s) and Azure industry experts along with partnerships with over 100 academic institutions across the country.

At the Microsoft AI Tour, Bengaluru, developers from nonprofit organizations, student developers, and large enterprises showcased how Microsoft technologies have accelerated their AI adoption and empowered them to innovate. These included the following:

• Sarvam AI provides large language models (LLMs) that offer Indic language support. The generative AI startup aims to make the development, deployment, and distribution of generative AI apps in India more robust, better performing, and cheaper.
• Shiksha copilot, developed by the Sikshana Foundation and Microsoft Research India, aims to improve learning outcomes and empower teachers to create comprehensive, age-appropriate lesson plans with personalized learning experiences. Powered by Azure OpenAI models, it helps teachers develop a complete lesson plan with engaging content in 60 to 90 seconds instead of 60 to 90 minutes. It is currently deployed in about 30 rural and urban schools in Bengaluru, India, and the Sikshana Foundation is working with Microsoft to deploy it at scale.
• The Open Healthcare Network has helped manage 581 hospitals, oversee 20,712 hospital beds, attend to 362,349 patients, and facilitate over 500 million consultations in India with the support of 1,884 health workers. GitHub Copilot is helping the project grow rapidly and address the needs of the country’s healthcare system.
• Persistent Systems’ Intelligent Digital Engineering Platform, powered by Azure AI, enables large enterprises across various sectors in India to adopt and integrate LLM technology. By leveraging established Azure patterns for observability, data governance, and model registry, the platform provides a comprehensive environment for developing LLM applications.

Click here to learn more about Satya Nadella’s visit and how Microsoft is empowering organizations in India with AI.

Microsoft Chairman/ CEO Satya Nadella Visits India, Reinforces Microsoft Commitment to Support India’s Transformation Into An AI-First Nation

Microsoft’s chairman and CEO, Satya Nadella on stage at the CEO Connection event in Mumbai. With its fourth datacenter region set to go live soon, and datacenters in collaboration with Jio, Microsoft boasts more datacenter regions than any other cloud provider in India.Mumbai, February

Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella kicked off his visit to India on Wednesday, by reinforcing the company’s commitment to supporting India’s transformation into an AI-first nation. The commitment aligns with India’s vision of becoming self-reliant by fostering a skilled AI workforce and empowering every sector and industry to transform with AI.

Nadella made the comments at the Microsoft CEO Connection event in Mumbai on Wednesday, which was attended by top business leaders and decision makers. During his address, Nadella announced that Microsoft will provide 2 million people in India with AI skilling opportunities by 2025, through its new ADVANTA(I)GE INDIA initiative. This will help to close skills gaps across the nation and strengthen India’s ability to thrive in the AI era.

“India is uniquely positioned to make the promise of AI a reality,” said Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO, Microsoft. “We are committed to partnering broadly across the public and private sector to help close the nation’s AI skills gap and create new opportunity throughout the country.”

Nadella highlighted how Microsoft Copilot, along with the company’s other AI solutions, is driving measurable productivity gains for people and organizations by helping them complete work faster and with superior quality. For instance, recent research on early users of Copilot for Microsoft 365 found that they were 29 percent faster in a series of tasks, including searching, writing, and summarizing.

Many organizations in India are already boosting their productivity and accelerating innovation using Copilot for Microsoft 365 and GitHub Copilot. They include:

• Axis Bank, the first bank in India to adopt Copilot for Microsoft 365 at enterprise scale, with 300 users and counting. It has seen productivity gains of more than 30 percent in daily work thanks to Copilot.
• Infosys, an IT consulting firm and one of India’s most prominent early adopters of GitHub Copilot in India. More than 7,000 of the firm’s developers are using GitHub Copilot to tap into the power of AI and innovate at the speed of thought.
• HCL Tech, a global IT services and consulting company that created a Copilot for Microsoft 365 plugin for Microsoft Teams to help software developers and managers streamline bug resolution.
• LTIMindtree, an IT and consulting services giant that built a Copilot for Microsoft 365 plugin for Teams to optimize staff management.

Organizations in India are seeing an average US$3.86 return for every US dollar spent on AI projects, and more than 150 organizations are already innovating with Azure OpenAI Service across industries such as agriculture, aviation, ecommerce, and fast-moving consumer goods. They include:

• ITC, a diversified Indian conglomerate, developed the innovative chatbot Krishi Mitra for farmers. The app uses Microsoft’s voice-to-text technology to understand and respond to farmers’ queries in voice and vernacular, making it accessible to those with limited literacy skills. Krishi Mitra is specifically trained for Indian farming environments. 
• Karya, an Indian social impact organization, partnered with Microsoft to create new data sets in local languages, while creating new economic opportunities for people in rural India. The initiative enriches data sets while improving lives through fair wages, training, and support.
• Arvind Limited, India’s largest denim manufacturer, expects to save 60 percent of time spent analyzing annual reports with its Annual Report Copilot. The solution helps decision makers analyze annual reports from multiple years and gain valuable insights in a timely manner, enabling them to produce better business strategies at speed.
• Air India, the flag carrier airline, deployed a generative AI virtual agent called AI.g. It has successfully answered over half a million customer queries since its launch in March 2023, and manages over 6,000 queries a day in four languages.

Nadella will speak to a large gathering of the country’s developers and technology leaders at the Microsoft AI Tour in Bengaluru tomorrow (Thursday, February 8).

Click here to learn more about Satya Nadella’s visit and how Microsoft is empowering organizations in India with AI.

About Microsoft India 

Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT; @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Microsoft set up its India operations in 1990. Today, Microsoft entities in India have over 23,000 employees engaged in sales and marketing, research, development, customer support, and industry solutions across 10 Indian cities – Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, New Delhi, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, Noida, and Pune. Microsoft offers its global cloud services from local data centers to accelerate digital transformation across Indian startups, businesses, and government organizations. 

Former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Joining Microsoft

After OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was fired from the company on Friday, Microsoft is hiring him to lead a new advanced AI research team, announced Satya Nadella, in an X (Twitter) post.

Besides Altman, Microsoft is hiring OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman too.

“We’re extremely excited to share the news that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, together with colleagues, will be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team,” says Nadella. “We look forward to moving quickly to provide them with the resources needed for their success.

Altman was fired from OpenAI and Mira Murat was named as interim CEO, who again replaced by former Twitch CEO and co-founder Emmett Shear as interim CEO, as reported by The Verge. Later on, in a series of events, the company board also negotiated to potentially bring Altman back to OpenAI as CEO but Altman refused to join again. 

According to The New York Times, Sam Altman was quick to create another AI-based startup with an another OpenAI executive who also exited at the same time.

Sam Altman had reportedly been pitching a new tech startup to build custom Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) chips, that could compete with NVIDIA. He had been pitching this to investors lately , according to The New York Times. The TPU project was codenamed “Tigris,” attracting a number of prominent venture firms including Microsoft.

Microsoft has recently announced it has built its own custom AI chip that can be used to train large language models and potentially resolve the costly monopoly of Nvidia.

Altman and Brockman will now join Microsoft's new advanced AI research team as leads.

Suncity Students Commended by Satya Nadella for Advanced Air Monitoring System

Students of Suncity School showcased their project - An Advanced Air Monitoring System before Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft during his visit to India. It had earlier won the third prize in AI Challenge at Microsoft EDUDAYS which witnessed a participation of 700+ schools across India to expose the educators to the state-of-art learning and innovation practices in education. The project is a brainchild of four students of Grade 9, namely Diya Bhatnagar, Yashita Manglick, Saksham Diwan and Arush Lall.

Ms. Rupa Chakravarty, Director, Suncity School, said, "We are elated to receive recognition from Microsoft. The project demonstrates the innovative and creative spirit of the students and is a step forward in transforming education through Transversal learning. We are grateful to Microsoft for providing us with the opportunity to discuss and deliberate on the innovative means to transform education and think empathetically while changing the world."

Aerocras comprises a computing system and sensors that can be used to carefully monitor the amount of Suspended Particulate Matter in the surroundings. Through IoT, the project can improvise on current air purifiers by switching it on automatically when the amount exceeds the safe limit, thereby conserving energy.

These four students had undertaken the project as a part of their assignment. Diya Bhatnagar was the leader of the project who enjoys coding and designing using Photoshop. She has programmed various applications such as Dishi which is a messaging application. Another member, Arush Lall had won the TCS Ion 2019 - Creativity and Innovation - First in India. Wherein, he was awarded with a cheque amount of Rs. 50,000. He has also been a part of the World Scholar's Cup - 3rd best team in South Asia. The other two members, Yashita Manglick and Saksham Diwan are proficient in editing.

Diya Bhatnagar, the project lead and a student of Suncity School, said, "It was an amazing and enriching experience to meet Satya Nadella. He commended us for recognizing the magnitude of air pollution as a massive challenge. Going forward, we intend to leverage AI to assess the causes of not only air pollution but also noise and water pollution and facilitate informed decision-making."

The second edition of Education Days 2019 witnessed a participation of 700+ schools and students across India. It recognized the efforts of schools on the usage of technology in day-to-day classrooms to enable next-level collaboration. It also aimed to instil critical thinking, problem-solving, self-management and responsible decision-making skills among students. The annual event is in line with Microsoft's vision to evolve the educational landscape of the country through the integration of technology.

Suncity School was earlier selected to represent its Multiple Intelligence Lab by Microsoft through Skype in Virtual Field Tour (VFT).

Narayana Murthy, Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella are Top Tech Inspiration for Indian Techies

In an exclusive survey conducted by IT learning platform TechGig, about 64% Indian IT professionals voted for NR Narayana Murthy as the game changer for desi technology sector. Also, Google’s Sundar Pichai topped the list of India-born technology leaders whom most Indians are proud of. He was followed by Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and NIO’s CEO Padmasree Warrior at second and third position, respectively.

In the last 71 years, India has relentlessly worked to become a top player in various spheres, and it has been able to achieve that feat in Technology sector undoubtedly. Today, IT is one of the biggest contributors to India’s GDP, economy and overall success story. To understand major milestones in India’s growth story, TechGig conducted an exclusive survey on IT professionals and the findings revealed the major milestones, as perceived by the Indian techies. Here are the chief outcomes:

Narayana Murthy - The game changer in IT sector

Indian IT sector has been benefitted by contributions of many stalwarts but clearly, Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy remains a hot favourite among the tech professionals. The surveyed professionals were asked to enlist the name of an Indian who created the biggest impact in Indian IT industry, and Narayana Murthy topped the charts among many present and past IT leaders. He served Infosys for around 21 years but his imprint on the mind of Indian techies seems everlasting.

Murthy was followed by Wipro’s Azim Premji and Tata’s N Chandrasekaran on the second and third positions, respectively.

Technology has made jobs more competitive

TechGig’s survey also revealed that technological advancement in last 71 years has given an unprecedented boost to the Indian job market. Around 60% of surveyed professionals support the fact that adoption of technology has been an enabler of jobs, rather than a destroyer. These techies also enlisted that the continuous progression and development on technological front has led to an increase in demand for job profiles like web developer, data engineer, data analyst in recent times.

About 95% of survey respondents said that advancement of technology has made jobs more competitive. About 66% of Indian employees in Tech domain feel that their work is as competitive as jobs abroad. Also, 66% of professionals feel that Indian companies are no longer just the outsourcing hub, possibly because most of them are focussing on R&D to differentiate their offerings from the rest.

“Modern India has a strong focus on science and technology. Today everything in the corporate world is revolving around Big Data, AI, IoT, mapping the future of IT industry, which indeed is fabulous. According to recent trends IT industry will witness a sharp upsurge in off-shore demand. Also, the Indian IT sector will gain momentum, creating a plethora of job opportunities for IT people and future ahead,” said Ramathreya Krishnamurthi – Business Head, TimesJobs & TechGig.

Sundar Pichai, tops the list of India-born leaders

Talented Indians have made breakthroughs, pushed boundaries and held positions of power in the world of technology. According to TechGig survey Google CEO, Sundar Pichai tops the list of India-born technology leaders of whom Indians are proud of, followed by Satya Nadella and Padmasree Warrior at second and third position respectively.

Complete survey findings are available at https://bit.ly/2wKZSLa

TechGig is a culmination of everything related to technology, a platform exclusively for IT professionals to synergize, share, exchange ideas, facts and information as well as showcase their work and express their views on the vast repertoire that the IT industry encompasses. Garnering cutting-edge insights, jobs, reviews and news, as well as providing a platform for connecting with colleagues and peers are the mainstay of TechGig.

[The above content is published unedited via Business Wire India feed]

Microsoft Joins Linux, Exactly 15 Years After Calling it a ‘Cancer’

In a move that has surprised the whole of the tech world, tech giant Microsoft joined hands with its once archenemy Linux; and in another shocker it also ended up joining search giant Google as well.

The news was revealed to the world at the recently concluded Microsoft event, Microsoft Connect conference for software developers, in New York. Microsoft's executive vice president Scott Guthrie along with Linux Foundation's president Jim Zemlin made a joint official announcement about Microsoft joining Linux.

It is interesting to note that such an announcement would have been completely out of question to even imagine about a few years ago, since both the companies since their respective inception have had almost opposite set of beliefs. When Microsoft was revelling in the glory of its hit Windows OS, its nemesis ended up completely changing the game upside down with an open-source Operating System. The relationship had gotten so much worse that in the year 2001, Microsoft’s previous CEO Steve Ballmer Ballmer called Linux a cancer. He said, “Linux is cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches.”

According to experts, the reason for this surprise move is, that Microsoft is no longer is a Steve Ballmer company, and has a new and fresh leader in Satya Nadella who is looking at things with new perspectives and isn't afraid of taking actions.

The conference also saw Microsoft announcing that search giant Google will be joining a committee of its independent .NET Foundation too. Interestingly, Google is one of Microsoft’s top competitors when it comes to applications and cloud services. For the unaware, the .NET Foundation works towards promoting the company's .NET software development tech usage. Samsung and RedHat are other members companies of the foundation.

A number of recent Microsoft moves show a clear change in vision of the company from Steve Ballmer to Satya Nadella. Since Ballmer, the tech giant has invested a lot of money in a good number of non-Microsoft technologies, and has even joined the Eclipse Foundation, which is considered as an important open-source institution.

It is no surprise that developers love working on the Linux platform, and all though Microsoft is late to the party, but it seems it has finally realised its potential and wants them to work on the Microsoft Azure Cloud. While Linux is an open source software which means it is free or an almost free software, Windows, on the other hand, is a proprietary software package that comes at a price.

Following the new CEO's vision and strategy, the company recently also made Visual Studio Code, PowerShell, and Microsoft Edge’s JavaScript engine open-source. The company even tied-up with Canonical to get Ubuntu in Windows 10, and also ended up buying Xamarin so as to provide a helping hand in mobile app development. Xamarin’s developer tools and SDKs were also open-sourced.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella To Be Featured In Andhra Pradesh School Textbooks

Born in Hyderabad, India in the year 1969, Satya Narayana Nadella became a world famous name in February 2014, when he took charge of one of the worlds most famous tech company, Microsoft, in the capacity of its CEO. Since then he has become a favourite of the Indian and international press alike. And, now, the wonderful personality has found a place in the school textbooks in Andhra Pradesh.

According to a news piece published in a reputed daily, the Andhra Pradesh government has revised the Telugu non-detailed books from the sixth to the 10th class and English textbooks from first to fifth class. As a result of this revision, Nadella has made his way into the textbooks.

The Microsoft CEO will be one among some of the new personalities being featured in the revised textbooks. Others who have been finalised are, the late mountaineer Malli Mastan Babu, who was famous for being the fastest person to climb seven of the tallest peaks in all of the seven continents, and the celebratory late artist and writer Sanjeev Dev. They all will be a part of the chapter titled ‘Spoorthi Pradaathulu’ (Role Models) in the Telugu non-detailed book for the eighth class. Various other local state heroes have also found a mention in the books of different standards.

From 2014, when Nadella took charge of the Microsoft to the year 2016, the CEO has been successful in turning things around for the tech giant. In the course of making this happen, he has taken a lot of decisions which no one could think about. For example: embracing the company's rival Linux OS on the Microsoft Azure cloud. Smart move, we say.

He further released Microsoft Office for the Apple iPad, spent $2.5 billion to buy Mojang, the studio behind the world famous hit-game Minecraft, released the first-class iPhone and Android mobile applications like Microsoft Outlook, took the decision to skip Windows 9 after the disastrous Windows 8 and went straight for the amazing Windows 10 and introduced the world to Microsoft Surface Book, Microsoft's first laptop ever. So much in such a short tenure surely does deserve a mention.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella To Be Featured In Andhra Pradesh School Textbooks

Born in Hyderabad, India in the year 1969, Satya Narayana Nadella became a world famous name in February 2014, when he took charge of one of the worlds most famous tech company, Microsoft, in the capacity of its CEO. Since then he has become a favourite of the Indian and international press alike. And, now, the wonderful personality has found a place in the school textbooks in Andhra Pradesh.

According to a news piece published in a reputed daily, the Andhra Pradesh government has revised the Telugu non-detailed books from the sixth to the 10th class and English textbooks from first to fifth class. As a result of this revision, Nadella has made his way into the textbooks.

The Microsoft CEO will be one among some of the new personalities being featured in the revised textbooks. Others who have been finalised are, the late mountaineer Malli Mastan Babu, who was famous for being the fastest person to climb seven of the tallest peaks in all of the seven continents, and the celebratory late artist and writer Sanjeev Dev. They all will be a part of the chapter titled ‘Spoorthi Pradaathulu’ (Role Models) in the Telugu non-detailed book for the eighth class. Various other local state heroes have also found a mention in the books of different standards.

From 2014, when Nadella took charge of the Microsoft to the year 2016, the CEO has been successful in turning things around for the tech giant. In the course of making this happen, he has taken a lot of decisions which no one could think about. For example: embracing the company's rival Linux OS on the Microsoft Azure cloud. Smart move, we say.

He further released Microsoft Office for the Apple iPad, spent $2.5 billion to buy Mojang, the studio behind the world famous hit-game Minecraft, released the first-class iPhone and Android mobile applications like Microsoft Outlook, took the decision to skip Windows 9 after the disastrous Windows 8 and went straight for the amazing Windows 10 and introduced the world to Microsoft Surface Book, Microsoft's first laptop ever. So much in such a short tenure surely does deserve a mention.

Microsoft Ties Up With Snapdeal, Paytm & Justdial; To Promote Startups Working In Smart Cities Solutions

Yesterday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was in Mumbai to pitch his company's technology and programs as ways to help India modernize both its technical and physical infrastructure. Nadella, as well as executive vice president Scott Guthrie, will also speak at Future Unleashed 2015, a Microsoft event taking place Thursday and Friday, in Mumbai.

At the event, Microsoft announced partnerships with three e-commerce players - Justdial, Paytm and Snapdeal - and launched a special cloud initiative for start-ups aligned to smart cities.

Additionally, Microsoft also announced a new initiative for startups delivering solutions for government's smart cities programme. Under this, Microsoft will work with startup accelerators, and startups will be able to apply for individual access to funds up to $120,000 worth of Azure computing for their smart cities solutions and pilots.

This cloud infrastructure funding by Microsoft, for startups working in smart cities solutions, came at time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi had already announced plans to build 100 'smart cities' by 2022 to decongest existing urban centres. The Microsoft CEO said his company was looking to engineer solutions to burgeoning urban migration and urban issues in India.

The program, in addition to open source friendly Azure, provides free software, developer tools, and technical support to help startups

Talking about its partnership with - Snapdeal, Paytm and Justdial, the company stated that Justdial and Microsoft will explore the use of Bing and cloud-based analytics to provide and enhance customer experience.

Paytm and Microsoft are working on three core areas of partnership. The companies will integrate the Paytm app and Paytm Wallet into Cortana, AI-based mobile assistance, to enable consumers to pay for their utility bills and carry out mobile transactions easily. Paytm will use Office 365 for their merchants' inventory and account management," Satya Nadella, the Indian-born chief executive of Microsoft, said in a statement.

"Lastly, Paytm will facilitate and support Microsoft service sales via their merchant network," company added.

Snapdeal will work with Microsoft Cloud platforms to create a digital automotive dealership that is expected to change the way customers make automotive buying decisions.

Under its funding program for startup working in smart cities solutions, Microsoft is partnering with 13 startup accelerators to roll out this program in the country. These include 91Springboard, Reliance GenNext, Zone Startups and Pitney Bowes among others. Globally, Microsoft is partnering with 150 startup accelerators in 47 countries to deploy this program. India, with its vibrant startup ecosystem, is a key country for Microsoft.

Late last month, Microsoft announced it was opening new data center regions in Pune, Chennai, and Mumbai.

Microsoft to Set Up Cloud Data Centre in India

If all goes as planned, Microsoft will soon offer Azure and Office 365 - its commercial and cloud services from three new local data centres in India. Microsoft is planning to make these services available by the end of next year. This step by the tech giant will make it the first technology company to ever set up cloud data centres in India. According to experts, this move by Microsoft will have the US based company compete better in the local market.

“When we think about the cloud opportunity in India itself, it is going to be a $2 trillion opportunity,” said, Satya Nadella, Chief Executive, Microsoft in New Delhi on Tuesday. Nadella also added that this move by Microsoft will benefit and help entrepreneurs, Indian companies and government. Nadella did not disclose the investment amount involved in setting up the data centres but said they will have ‘sizeable’ capacity.

This announcement by Microsoft is quite important given the ruling party, BJP’s views about bringing local data centres to the country in order to maintain the data sovereignty. Besides this, a lot of Indian enterprises have long been hesitant and worried about hosting their data on public cloud because none of the major data players like Google, Microsoft or Amazon Web Service have their data centres in the country.

“I think in two or three years, when the servers come to India, the public cloud market will become more interesting because now there are some territorial issues in holding the data in the country,” said, Jagdish Belwal, CIO at Tata Motors in a recent interview given to Economic Times. Tata Motors makes use of Amazon Web Services.

According to Vishal Tripathi’s statement to Economic Times, Microsoft’s move to set up a local data centre will give the company “more muscle” to compete in the cloud services market and “Office 365 could see higher adoption”. Vishal Tripathi is a Principal research analyst at Gartner.

With players such as IBM spending millions on advertising its Softlayer cloud and Oracle trying hard in the Indian market by announcing several more new offerings, the competition in the cloud market has increased like never before.

Microsoft to Set Up Cloud Data Centre in India

If all goes as planned, Microsoft will soon offer Azure and Office 365 - its commercial and cloud services from three new local data centres in India. Microsoft is planning to make these services available by the end of next year. This step by the tech giant will make it the first technology company to ever set up cloud data centres in India. According to experts, this move by Microsoft will have the US based company compete better in the local market.

“When we think about the cloud opportunity in India itself, it is going to be a $2 trillion opportunity,” said, Satya Nadella, Chief Executive, Microsoft in New Delhi on Tuesday. Nadella also added that this move by Microsoft will benefit and help entrepreneurs, Indian companies and government. Nadella did not disclose the investment amount involved in setting up the data centres but said they will have ‘sizeable’ capacity.

This announcement by Microsoft is quite important given the ruling party, BJP’s views about bringing local data centres to the country in order to maintain the data sovereignty. Besides this, a lot of Indian enterprises have long been hesitant and worried about hosting their data on public cloud because none of the major data players like Google, Microsoft or Amazon Web Service have their data centres in the country.

“I think in two or three years, when the servers come to India, the public cloud market will become more interesting because now there are some territorial issues in holding the data in the country,” said, Jagdish Belwal, CIO at Tata Motors in a recent interview given to Economic Times. Tata Motors makes use of Amazon Web Services.

According to Vishal Tripathi’s statement to Economic Times, Microsoft’s move to set up a local data centre will give the company “more muscle” to compete in the cloud services market and “Office 365 could see higher adoption”. Vishal Tripathi is a Principal research analyst at Gartner.

With players such as IBM spending millions on advertising its Softlayer cloud and Oracle trying hard in the Indian market by announcing several more new offerings, the competition in the cloud market has increased like never before.

NASSCOM 10,000 Start-ups to present TechScale with Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft

All the tech enthusiasts out there, you better mark your calendar for Tuesday, 30^th September, at New Delhi because this is one event which you surely don't want to miss. 10,000 start-ups, which is a NASSCOM initiative supported by Google, Microsoft, Verisign, Kotak and Intel is all ready to host TechScale with Indian Origin Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. 10,000 start-ups is holding this event in association with Microsoft.

Satya Nadella is going to visit India for the first time after becoming Microsoft CEO by end of this month. Satya is only the third CEO to head Microsoft in the company’s 38 year old history. He is much famous in India because of being the first Indian origin CEO of Microsoft.

Technology is rapidly evolving nowadays, what is new today might be old tomorrow. Cloud and Mobile are fast changing the way we look at computing worldwide. The TechScale being held on 30^th September will have Satya Nadella talk about all the above mentioned scenarios and how young innovators and entrepreneurs can make use of the power of Microsoft’s platform to scale new heights and expand their horizons.

The event is scheduled for 30^th September 2014, 3:30 pm-5:00pm. All the details regarding the venue will be shared with the confirmed participants for the event most likely by 25^th September 2014. The event is most probably going to take place in New Delhi.

Any young entrepreneur (whether your product is small or big) can be a part of the event. So, if you think, you don’t want to miss out on this memorable evening, you can sign up for the event here.

Satya Nadella was born in Hyderabad in a Telugu family from Anantapur district and attained a bachelor of engineering in Electronics and Telecommunications from the Manipal Institute of Technology in 1987. Later he traveled to the U.S. to study for an MS degree in Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, receiving his degree in 1990.

If you wish to ask Satya a question, you can tweet them with the hashtag #AskSatya and if you're lucky enough, you might get to ask him the question in person.

Tech entrepreneurs can sign up for an invite by link here - http://10000startups.com/techscale-with-satya-nadella/

NASSCOM 10,000 Start-ups to present TechScale with Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft

All the tech enthusiasts out there, you better mark your calendar for Tuesday, 30^th September, at New Delhi because this is one event which you surely don't want to miss. 10,000 start-ups, which is a NASSCOM initiative supported by Google, Microsoft, Verisign, Kotak and Intel is all ready to host TechScale with Indian Origin Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. 10,000 start-ups is holding this event in association with Microsoft.

Satya Nadella is going to visit India for the first time after becoming Microsoft CEO by end of this month. Satya is only the third CEO to head Microsoft in the company’s 38 year old history. He is much famous in India because of being the first Indian origin CEO of Microsoft.

Technology is rapidly evolving nowadays, what is new today might be old tomorrow. Cloud and Mobile are fast changing the way we look at computing worldwide. The TechScale being held on 30^th September will have Satya Nadella talk about all the above mentioned scenarios and how young innovators and entrepreneurs can make use of the power of Microsoft’s platform to scale new heights and expand their horizons.

The event is scheduled for 30^th September 2014, 3:30 pm-5:00pm. All the details regarding the venue will be shared with the confirmed participants for the event most likely by 25^th September 2014. The event is most probably going to take place in New Delhi.

Any young entrepreneur (whether your product is small or big) can be a part of the event. So, if you think, you don’t want to miss out on this memorable evening, you can sign up for the event here.

Satya Nadella was born in Hyderabad in a Telugu family from Anantapur district and attained a bachelor of engineering in Electronics and Telecommunications from the Manipal Institute of Technology in 1987. Later he traveled to the U.S. to study for an MS degree in Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, receiving his degree in 1990.

If you wish to ask Satya a question, you can tweet them with the hashtag #AskSatya and if you're lucky enough, you might get to ask him the question in person.

Tech entrepreneurs can sign up for an invite by link here - http://10000startups.com/techscale-with-satya-nadella/