Microsoft partner to offer hosted software in India

Microsoft has teamed up with Bharti Airte, a large Indian telecommunications service provider, to offer hosted software and services for small and medium businesses (SMBs) in the country.

Bharti Airtel of Delhi will cooperate with Microsoft to provide enterprise-class software bundled with connectivity solutions to small businesses that do not have dedicated IT resources, Bharti Airtel said on Sunday.

The service will be hosted and managed by Bharti Airtel, a spokesman for Microsoft India said on Monday.

The service, predominantly aimed at companies with five or more employees, is expected to be available in January of next year, according to Bharti Airtel.

Using a “pay-as-you-go” model, SMBs will have benefits similar to those of large enterprise customers without initial investments, Bharti Airtel said.

Initially, the companies will offer basic hosted services such as e-mail, calendaring and scheduling, according to the spokesman. Later, they plan to provide applications such as CRM (customer relationship management), accounting, ERP (enterprise resource planning) and select applications from Microsoft’s ISV (independent software vendor) partners.

Bharti Airtel has made good inroads into the SMB segment, the spokesman said. Because the telecommunications service provider owns the communications pipe to the customer, it can use this channel to offer hosted services as well.

The pricing model for the services has as yet to be worked out, according to the spokesman.