Microsoft to expand operations in India

Mumbai: Software giant Microsoft is scaling up its operations in India. The Redmond-based company, which employs over 4,000 professionals in India, however, said it finds hiring just out-of-college IT engineers a problem. The company did not also give any specific numbers it plans to add.

Says Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft, "We are scaling up our team in India. Our R&D, global support, customer service team are growing dramatically in India. India deserves a lot of my attention as I see the growth with economy, vitality, mobility, PC market all are growing."

Microsoft suggested that imparting practical training could help overcome the dearth in availability of trained manpower.

"There is certainly a worldwide need for IT engineers and there are two issues. The issue, however, is whether the world would be able to apply the talent that is graduating from the Indian universities each year. Twenty-five to 30 per cent of the worldwide engineers graduate from India," he said.

"The other situation is to ensure that when somebody comes out of the university, (whether) they are immediately employable by the companies seriously doing IT works... (as) sometimes that requires a little bit of training which people don't get in universities. The fact that I highlighted this (is) because we see that an issue in India", he added.

Ballmer said Microsoft is doing its bit to remove this problem through training that would make engineers employable.

Microsoft, which has the largest R&D centre in India outside Redmond, has continuously grown its presence here.