Microsoft, Hutchison tie-up for mobile search

New Delhi, Nov 8 (UNI) Taking note of the fast growing mobile market in the country, Microsoft India today announced a tie up with Hutchison Essar for offering search, mail and messaging services.

''With India being the fastest growing mobile market in the world, this area surely needs to be addressed by Microsoft.

Providing a rich set of online services for mobile subscribers is more important than ever for us today,'' Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told reporters here.

He said this alliance allows Microsoft to bring the power of software-based services to the 21 million subscriber base of Hutchison and would stimulate e-commerce and the advertising market in a new way.

HUtchison Essar Managing Director Asim Ghosh said, ''Mobile internet is the way forward. Looking at the present scenerio, search and access through the SMS platform is needed for additional penetration.'' Meanwhile, Mr Ballmer expected rapid growth in Microsoft's Windows Live Search, which presently has of millions of users globally, but accepted facing stiff competition from other search engines like Google and Yahoo.

''We know we are not the leader in search engines but aim to be one,'' he said.

Mr Ballmer, who is on a three-day visit to India, also met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh besides the IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran here this morning.

In December, Microsoft had said it would invest 1.7 billion dollars over four years to scape up its team in research, information technology, etc.

Microsoft already sells its software in several Indian languages and outsources a lot of development work to domestic software exporters such as Infosys Technologies Ltd and Wipro Ltd.

President A P J Abdul Kalam also delivered a keynote address at a panel discussion of eminent corporate leaders like Narayan Murthy of Infosys Technologies and Malvinder Singh of Ranbaxy.

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