Ahmedabad, Gujarat -- (SBWIRE) -- 06/07/2010 -- Ever since the Internet based software development services turned to cloud computing, the IT industry has seen a dramatic change in the business processing. Even the technical biggies like Microsoft are now adopting the cloud computing technology to get a bigger market share for business processing outsourcing. Speaking of business processing outsourcing, Microsoft says that India has a huge potential to emerge as the global competency centre for cloud services.

India gets this coveted opportunity since there are over 1300 independent software vendors (ISVs), 1.4 million developers and more than 11000 system integrators (SIs and custom software development organizations) in its powerful ecosystem, and hence India is ideal to tap this growing opportunity. The growing boom in software development for cloud computing estimates around 300,000 jobs related to cloud services to be created in India over the next 5 years. Zinnoy, one of the global consultants and analysts, estimates the global cloud computing market to be worth over USD 70 billion by 2015.

The CEO of Microsoft Corporation went on to urge that India would be the obvious hub of the global IT transition for cloud computing services. "India will not only see a surge in consumption of cloud services,  driving growth in domestic IT usage, but  companies all over the world will look to India to support their transition to  cloud computing." said Ballmer. Microsoft recognizes cloud computing to be the next big thing in software development industry and hence has a robust cloud infrastructure that supports over one billion customers and 20 million businesses globally. Microsoft India in its press release NIIT, CDC, Cognizant, and IISc are sharing plans for software development using the cloud computing services based on Microsoft Azure.

The largest chain of institutes for IT professional across India, NIIT, leads the cause by training over 100,000 students on Windows Azure over the next three years. Rajendra Pawar, the Chairman of the National Institute of Information Technology (NIIT) foresees the power of the cloud the talent that is needed to fulfill the void in the skill set required for software development. Pawar says that NIIT attempts to bridge this gap by offering an exclusive program to train professionals on Windows Azure for the first time in India. Other nationally renowned IT institution such as the IITs and IIITs are also building large India-relevant projects leveraging Microsoft's Azure platform.

CDC Software plans to roll out its flagship product built on Windows Azure, CDC Respond, globally for banking and government sectors for managing complaints and feedbacks from the customers.

Cognizant, a major India based software development company and consultant, has announced the creation of a vertically aligned set of industry frameworks and pre-built solution accelerators to enable implementation, migration and management of cloud-enabled application portfolios built on Azure for clients both in India and globally. "Windows Azure helps customers unlock the value that can be derived from cloud-enabled services, and helps them build strong and agile businesses," said Chandrasekaran, president and MD (global delivery), Cognizant.

The Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, is building a large-scale application on Windows Azure to study the basic resource allocation constructs and strategies required for addressing enterprise needs on cloud computing.

These announcements are in addition to the over 4000 applications that have already been built on the Windows Azure platform by India. 

ISVs and SIs including Wipro, Infosys, TCS, HCL Technologies and Mahindra Satyam are building applications and solutions across verticals ranging from healthcare to banking to manufacturing for both local and global markets.