Reliance-Microsoft cloud tie-up: Should it worry Google and Amazon?

New Delhi, Aug 13: Reliance Industries announced on Monday a partnership with tech giant Microsoft which will power the data centres set-up by Reliance in India.

The tie-up with Microsoft's Azure cloud platform will widen the scope of Jio offerings. The Reliance-Microsoft tie-up will undoubtedly spark a price war in the Indian cloud market and hence may spill trouble for rival players like Amazon and Google.

Under the new partnership Reliance will set up a network of large world-class data centres across India which will be powered by Microsoft's cloud platform Azure.

Mr Mukesh Ambani in Monday's AGM stressed that "When we put these two pieces together, we now have the capabilities to develop India-native solutions including speech recognition and natural understanding of all major Indian languages and dialects."

This would be of great help to small and medium enterprises based in India.

Also, the Reliance-Microsoft partnership could help Jio extend its services to India's booming start-up scene.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadela while addressing Reliance shareholders in a video message said,"Together we will offer comprehensive technology solutions- from computer and storage, connectivity and productivity-to small and medium businesses everywhere in the country."

Competitive pricing

Jio is offering free connectivity and cloud infrastructure to start-ups, micro, small, medium businesses for prices as low as Rs.1500 a month. Rivals like Google and Amazon are providing similar services at prices much higher than Jio.

Hopefully, Reliance-Microsoft cloud tie-up will be a game changer for the end user and will help in accelerating India's digital transformation.