Microsoft Inks 10-Year Deal With Top Indian Telecom Network Reliance Jio To Court 'Millions' of Small and Medium Businesses

Microsoft on Monday announced a long-term partnership with India's top telecom network Reliance Jio to reach "millions" of small and medium businesses clients in the key overseas market. From a report: The 10-year alliance between the two will see them launch new cloud data-centers in India to ensure "more of Jio's customers can access the tools and platforms they need to build their own digital capability," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in a video appearance Monday. Three-year-old Reliance Jio has amassed more than 340 million subscribers in the country. "At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Core to this mission is deep partnerships, like the one we are announcing today with Reliance Jio. Our ambition is to help millions of organizations across India thrive and grow in the era of rapid technological change. Together, we will offer a comprehensive technology solution, from compute to storage, to connectivity and productivity for small and medium-sized businesses everywhere in the country," he added.

As part of the partnership, Nadella said, Jio and Microsoft will jointly offer Azure, Microsoft 365, and Microsoft AI platforms to more organizations in India, and also bring Azure Cognitive Services to more devices and in 13 Indian languages to businesses in the country. The solutions will be âoeaccessibleâ to reach as many people and organizations in India as possible, he added. The cloud services will be offered to businesses for as little as Rs 1,500 ($21) per month. The first two data-centers will be set up in Gujarat and Maharashtra by next year. Jio will migrate all of its non-networking apps to Microsoft Azure platform and promote its adoption among its ecosystem of startups, the two said in a joint statement.