Microsoft's Future Unleashed conference: Rounding up the news from India

Earlier today, Microsoft held its Future Unleashed conference in Mumbai India. The customer conference is the largest one Microsoft holds in India with over 3,000 customers, business leaders, IT professionals, entrepreneurs, and developers in attendance. The technology company took the stage to showcase its newest Windows 10 devices, announced new e-commerce partnerships with Indian firms, and explained what Microsoft’s mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet means for Indian organizations and governments.
CEO Satya Nadella, himself born in India, led the Future Unleashed keynote by saying:
“At Microsoft, we strive to empower every Indian citizen and every business and government organization to achieve more. With the newly launched Microsoft Cloud and with Surface Pro 4, our customers here in India have the digital technology they need to seize incredible new growth and opportunity on a global scale.”
The company then announced that to “drive innovation in the fast-evolving e-commerce industry, Microsoft has entered into broad-ranging agreements with JustDial, PayTm and Snapdeal.” The deals include the use of a range of Microsoft technologies including “machine learning, Bing, Skype and Microsoft’s digital assistant, Cortana.”
Both the JustDial and PayTm partnerships seem to be standard, yet large scale, provision of Microsoft’s commercial cloud business. Specifically, the deals will augment and enhance the companies’ customer relationship management, as well as improve new ways to engage customers and provide more mobile services.
JustDial will use Bing and cloud-based analytics “to provide and enhance customer experience.” PayTm’s partnership is more expansive and will include integrating the PayTm app and PayTm wallet into Cortana. PayTm will also use Office 365 for inventory and account management.
Microsoft and Snapdeal’s collaboration is something different though, as they will be working together to create a new digital automotive dealership that they fully expect will “change the way customers make automotive buying decisions.” The project will use Skype, Bing, and Cortana to power new engagement platforms for Snapdeal.

Microsoft also announced a new initiative aimed at promoting innovative solutions for developing smart cities in India. The initiative will give away individual access of up to $120,000 worth of Azure computing to local-startups focused on creating smart city solutions in India. In addition to access to Azure’s cloud computing, recipients will also receive free software and tools like Visual Studio, Office and Dynamics CRM, training courses, and support for connecting with enterprise customers.
It was also announced, as we reported earlier, that the new Lumia flagship phones will be coming to India in December, and the Surface Pro 4 will be available in January.
India has been an important market for Microsoft. And with today’s announcement, coupled with other news this year of the technology company investing in its retail operations in India, the importance of the country is only growing for the Redmond based firm.
What do you think of the new partnerships announced at Future Unleashed? Let us know in the comments section below.