With cloud, Microsoft has real opportunity in India: Nadella

With the emergence of cloud computing, Microsoft has a real opportunity in India, the company's India-born CEO Satya Nadella has said.

"It was hard selling softwares. But now with cloud, we have real opportunity in India. That definitely is the transformative thing. And of course by design, it has anti-piracy built into it, which also is very helpful," Nadella told an investors conference being held here on the sidelines of the Build 2015 conference.

The world's largest software company is one of the leaders in the cloud, essentially providing computing power and storage to customers through its network of data centers.

In his address to the '2015 Microsoft Financial Analyst Briefing', 47-year-old Nadella said: "Qualitatively, the way I describe the world that we live in and what it will be in the next five years is this mobile-first, cloud-first world."

Nadella said the company's mission is to empower every person and organisation on the planet to achieve more. "Obviously, in the last 40 years, a lot has changed.

A lot of technologies and a lot of devices, rightfully so, have come and gone. But what has remained at our core is that empowerment," he said.

"We have a focus. Our focus, our core is about being the best when it comes to productivity and platform in this mobile-first, cloud-first world," the Microsoft CEO said.

"That is what we want to excel in, that's what's going to drive our growth, that's where we want to make sure we serve our customers, partners, the best," he added.

Nadella was appointed as Microsoft's CEO in February 2014, succeeding Steve Ballmer.

Kevin Turner, chief operating officer of Microsoft, said one of the big changes that they have made at Microsoft is it all starts with customer success, focusing in on how to help the customers re-imagine their businesses, how to help the customers find success in their business models.

"And the other big mantra we have at Microsoft, particularly for our field and our go-to-market model, is transforming while performing, and working on those things simultaneously is a very important part of our rigour and our discipline, and what we bring to the table relative to focusing on this customer success," Turner said.

Cloud computing means "a type of Internet-based computing," where different services — such as servers, storage and applications — are delivered to an organisation's computers and devices through the Internet.

Photograph: Reuters